The Burden of Three
by Shadow B. Panther
Summary: Simple questions, what if Naruto wasn't the only child born to his parents on the day of the Kyuubi attack? What if there were more than one demon that attacked Konoha? What would their life be like?
1. The Beginning

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto. Masashi Kishimoto does, so thank him for Naruto.

Rated to be on the safe side.

**Summary: **Simple questions, what if Naruto wasn't the only child born to his parents on the day of the Kyuubi attack? What if there were more than one demon that attacked Konoha? What would their life be like?

**A/N: **I'll admit that I'm new and this is my first story, meaning I have little experience so be patient with me and sorry if the length seems a little short. I hope to have some constructive criticism and not just flames. Hopefully I'll have decent chapters and I'm not sure how long this might be. I may switch between the translations for certain things, sometimes using the English dub or the given name.

"Speaking"

_Thinking _

**"Inner self/ Demon talking"**

_**Demon thinking **_

"**The Burden of Three"**

In the Village Hidden in the Leaves, better known as Konohagakure or Konoha for short, there are many strong ninja that have pushed their village to be the strongest of the Five Great Shinobi Villages. The leader of this great village is known as the Hokage, the strongest ninja of Leaf. At this time the Yondaime Hokage has had a couple years of peace after after gaining his title and position from his exploits in the Great Shinobi War. The Yondaime or Fourth Hokage is Kazama Arashi, better know as Konoha's Yellow Flash because of one of the jutsu that he had developed. He stands at about five feet ten and a half inches tall (179.2 cm) and wears the usual jonin/chunin blue uniform with a brown vest under a dark red hooded cloak with white flames along the base of the cloak. Some of his most distinguishing features is that he has bright blond spiky hair and bright blue eyes.

Arashi is said to be the strongest ninja that Leaf has ever produced, but it is also well known that there is one person in the village and maybe even the entire shinobi world that has been able to be a match for him and at times prove to be someone that he would not want to anger. This person is said to also be the only one that can control the Yondaime. This strong person would be his the overall commander of the ANBU and strongest kunoichi since Tsunade, Kazama Mina, also known as the wife of the Yondaime Hokage. She is about five feet two inches (157.5 cm) and usual seen in her traditional black ANBU gear, a silver cloak with black flames at the base that was a gift from Arashi, and tiger mask. Her eyes are darker blue than husband's and has long white hair. Despite her strength and title there is another reason that she is feared, that reason is would be her swollen stomach. It was discovered by a few people a long time ago that it is wise not to anger the strongest woman in the village, but that is even more true when that woman has mood swings. It seems that she is in her last month of pregnancy and quite large. Mina and Arashi had first thought that they were going to be having one child until they had a medic-nin examine her and discovered that they weren't having one or event two children, but were having triplets.

The information concerning the Kazama children was decided to be kept secret, since only a handful of close friends knew of their marriage and only a few of them along with several medic-nin knew of her condition. The reason that it was to be kept secret was that they did not want any assassination attempts on Mina or her unborn children since both parents made many enemies. The only people that know of the Kazama's marriage would be their former students, the previous Hokage, and their former teacher Jiraiya. Only several of the medic-nin, the Sandaime or Third Hokage, and Jiraiya that know of her pregnancy.

Now that strongest figures of Konoha have been introduced and we seen how they were about a week prior, it would be wise to look at the current condition of some of them as well as the condition of the great village. Well at the moment Kazama Mina is resting on a bed completely tired while there are three bassinet next to her bed hold her sleeping children. She looks up to her husband and smiles before speaking with a sad expression on her face.

"Arashi are you sure that there is no other way to defeat them?" Mina was beginning to cry while asking this. "No way without our little angels having to carry such a terrible burden or us being unable to help them?"

Arashi sighed and rubbed his eyes "I with there was another way as well but we both know that we don't have anywhere near enough time to even try to think of another plan. It's either this or these little ones won't even have a chance at life. Not just them but entire village. I'm sorry love, but there is no other way."

The kunoichi continued to cry while moving her eyes to her children "It's just not fair, none of this. Seeing them makes me sad to know that we will miss out on too much. My sweet little babies they all look like you, the boys should look just like you when they grow up and my little girl will most should look like a blond haired version of me. I really wish we wouldn't miss out on seeing them grow help them."

"You're right. It's not fair, but it's either this or well all die. That would mean that you and I wouldn't be here anyway and that all of the village would be gone, including our children" Arashi agreed with his wife, and brought his eyes to the three resting as he said the last part just above a whisper.

They hugged each other while watching their children before getting ready to leave out. Arashi was already prepared so he just watched his sleeping children. It was discovered that even though they were triplets the boys would be like identical twins while their sister would have a strong resemblance to them. Mina was getting into her old ANBU uniform, which still fit pretty well and helped make her look much thinner than when she was pregnant. Arashi then picked up the eldest of the triplets while Mina picked up the other two and left their home. Mina had when into labor several hours before and refused to let her husband leave her to get help, but he was lucky that the Sandaime was with them and had some experience with childbirth.

Now most would be curious what could be going on that would make these two proud parents so sad and what the talk about the destruction of the village could mean. Well quite simply several hundred yards (or meters) away from the gate stood the three of the most fearsome creatures to ever walk the planet, three of the Biju. In this world there exists nine great being known as Biju, or tailed demon beasts. Comparing their strength to humans is like comparing a ripple in the water to a tsunami. They are ranked as the weakest being the Ichibi (One Tail) to the strongest being a the Kyuubi (Nine Tail). It can be noted that even though not as strong as those with more tails that Ichibi is said to be stronger than several of the Kage leaders combined. What has most scared is that it's the Kyuubi no Kitsune (Nine Tailed Fox), Shichibi no Tori (Seven Tailed Tiger), and Rokubi no Ookami (Six Tailed Wolf).

It was once said that there were once many villages as large or powerful as Konoha, but were completely destroyed in a day or two when just one of these giant creatures appeared. Seeing three many of the ninja wondered if there would be any survivors. Their only hope was the Yondaime. He had been making a plan to deal with these demons when they were first sited in the Land of Fire two days prior and slowly coming to Konoha while destroying the nearby area. Some of the ninja of the village was ordered to aid the villagers while the the rest of the shinobi forces distracted the three demons while waiting for the Yondaime. So far they had many losses, were doing as they were ordered.

Suddenly there was a huge puff of smoke and a giant toad appeared. The shinobi recognized this as the Yondaime's boss summon and the signal for them to retreat. On top of the toad's head was the Kazama family, Arashi holding their oldest son and Mina with the other two, son held in her right arm and daughter on her left. Arashi was amazed that Mina was still standing considering that she just finished giving birth an hour ago. He smiled as he thought what kind of ninja their children would be with not just their ancestors abilities, but also the chakra levels and endurance they would have.

As the two shinobi stood on the toad watching the three demons standing in front of them they began to wonder what their children lives would be like and hoped that they would forgive their parents for what they were about to do to them. With that last thought Arashi began to form the hand seals that was needed.

He and his wife realized that they would could not kill the demons while they were planning and that the only way to stop them would be to seal them away, but the question was what to seal them in. They had heard that with the help of an insane priest the Kazukage was able to seal the Ichibi into a teapot, but they knew that would not work because they were too powerful to be put in an object and that even if that could work the demons would be released if the object was destroyed. They then thought a person, but knew that the demon chakra would destroy the person's chakra pathways and kill the person while releasing the demon. The last option would be a child since the chakra pathways are underdeveloped, but they would need a infant to do that since it would most likely kill a child more than a few months old like it would an adult. Though it sounded cruel it was the last option that they had that could save the village, a sad reminder of saving the many over the few.

Once that was realized they needed at least three children they had to decided on who to use. They thought that it was heartless to ask a parent to give up their child to be a host and prison to a demon. They finally came to a decision that they had to use their own children and hope they would be born in time. The reason for that decision was that they were having three which they needed, they could not bring themselves to ask another to use their child for that, and last they realized that as the leader the Yondaime could not ask another to do something that he himself was not willing to do. If he did not then there was a good chance that they both would lose the village's support and respect for using other's children.

The final thing was to design the seal. In just hours they made the perfect seal that was a combination of two seals, but they ran into a problem. They did not have enough power to place one demon in a seal, let alone three. In the end they found a way to seal the demons away, but this made them even more depressed than the fact that they would be sealing the demons in their children. They tried to think of another way but time was running out. The ninja were already beginning to engage the demons at the time and at the exact moment they began to wonder if they could be another way their children decided to add their opinion, so to speak. Mina went into labor not long after and that leads us to where we are now.

As Arashi was finishing his last seals the demons were watching them intently, curious of what they were doing. When he finished the Shinigami (God of Death) appeared behind them him and his wife. The Shinigami then stuck his arms in the back of the adult Kazama's and began to do what he was called to do. Arashi had realized that for the sealing to work that he and his wife would need to give their life energy to the Shinigami and have him pulls the demons into the seals they placed on their children. They were heartbroken that they would be unable to be there for their children when they would be needed, but it was either that or they all face death.

The demons began to feel a suction pulling them toward the humans on the toad and sigh as they knew they could not escape the Shinigami's power, but they also knew that they could not be killed. With little resistance they each had a different thought: Shichibi **_Maybe we underestimated the humans if two of them were smart enough to defeat us. _**;Rokubi **_Is the place really worth is for them to use their pups and sacrifice themselves? _**;Kyuubi**_ I can't believe that they stopped my revenge when I even call my brethren to aid me! _**Once the demons were pulled inside the seal the infants began to cry and three whisker-like marks began to appear on each of their cheeks. The parents began to calm their children down until the crying stopped.

With the demons pulled inside their seals the Shinigami pulled his hands out of the Kazama's back and waited. He may be the God of Death, but that didn't make him a heartless being. He allowed the two before him a couple of minutes before he would take them to the afterlife.

Arashi and Mina sat down while still on Gamabunta's head (most should know that's the name of the toad boss summon) and both began to cry. They could only hope that the Sandaime is able to take care of their children and keep them safe. Arashi pulled out a scroll that he used to store things while taking off his cloak and helping Mina take hers off. He then began to explain when she gave him an odd look.

"In this I stored all our letters to them as well as personal effects, including our photo album, their original birth certificates, that old cloak that I gave you before the one you just took off, my our old mask, some of our extra hitai-ates, and a couple of other things for them. The last things to put in here are the hitai-ate I am wearing, your mask, our cloaks, and our necklaces." Arashi said as he sealed everything.

He pulled off the necklace that he held in his hand. Hanging from the gold chain was a gold piece that was designed after the Leaf symbol and about the same size, but in the center of the swirl was a small sapphire as blue as his eyes with a reverse swirl design on it. His wife took out hers, which was on a much more slender chain and slightly smaller. She then took out a second one that was the same size and looked exactly like the one Arashi held except it was silver.

"This was suppose to be your anniversary gift, but I guess this will go to them as well. Oh I really with that we could be with our babies. Hopefully they can have a good life without us." The sad mother said as he placed the items in the scroll with several of his special kunai. He knew he had the scrolls inside their home, which he placed special seals and genjutsu over, and that they could use them to make more and whatever they wanted when they are old enough.

The two shinobi said a few words of how they love each other and their children before jumping off Gamabunta, who disappeared once they hit the ground. As they stood there the Sandaime walked up to them and had a couple of teen kunoichi with him. They handed their children to the girls before turning to the Sandaime Hokage, Saruboti. They had talked to him before had and they knew everything that was going on and what to do.

"Saruboti, we would want the village to look at these children as heroes. If it wasn't for them being here we would have never been able to stop those demons. Their part is just as important as ours, if not then more important than ours. I say that because each of them is holding and will hold a power that could easily destroy this entire village for the rest of their lives." The Yondaime said to the Sandaime.

Mina then spoke up as she leaned against Arashi for support, "Please take care of them they are now orphans and the only family they will have is each other. Please try to keep them together, if they can't have their parents love then maybe they can have their siblings' love"

Saruboti nodded his head as he watched the the girls step back a little to give them some privacy to talk and asked an important question, "And what are their names? Also I cannot let them have your surname because of all of the enemies that the Kazama name has created"

They both stood there for a second before Arashi spoke, "The boy with three whisker marks on each cheek is Naruto, he is the oldest of the three and holds the Kyuubi. The girl with two whisker marks on each cheek is Tatsuma, she is the second and holds the Rokubi. The boy with four whisker marks on each cheek is Hariken, he is the youngest and holds the Shichibi."

Mina began to speak once Arashi was done, "As for a surname you can do what I did, use our clan symbol. After all father took on the name Uzumaki since he had no surname when he became friends with Arashi's mother. I wonder...Uzumaki Naruto, Uzumaki Tatsuma, and Uzumaki Hariken. Well the name fits, it should be okay for them until they are strong enough to have their father's name again. You will take care of them for us, right?"

The Sandaime nodded his head as he spoke "Yes I'll do my best and when I'm unable I'll be sure to have them watched by trusted and loyal shinobi. What should I tell to Kakashi, Rin, and Kurenai?"

"Don't tell them anything for now, wait until at least one attains ninja status, but my best guess is that they will want to all be genin at the same time. I know they will be curious of the mark on their shoulder, seems that if all else fail you can use that as proof that they are my children. As for my mother and my aunt don't tell them yet either, they will be to sadden by our death to have our children's well being to add to their problems." Arashi said as he felt the Shinigami nearing them.

Mina spoke next, "It seems that our time is up, we will be watching from the other side. I would say that I can't wait to see you again, but hopefully it will be many years until then." She had a small smile on her face at the last part.

Arashi smiled too as he places his arm around his wife and gave her a small kiss on her cheek. He the spoke to the Sandaime again while handing over a scroll, "One last thing, when you think they are ready give them access to our home, possession, and tell them who we are. In this scroll are letters and items that we are leaving for them. There are number of seals on it that just react to my blood and chakra only, so only one of those three can open it"

The Sandaime took the scroll as the Shinigami appeared next to the Kazama's and prepared to take their souls. When the Shinigami vanished the lifeless bodies of the Yondaime and ANBU commander dropped to the ground. He sighed and rubbed his aged face as he heard the children crying a small distance away, most likely sensing their parents death. He had a couple thoughts running through his head as he was walking to the kunoichi that holding the infants. _I hope that we can do as you two wished, but I do wonder what kind of life your children will live. Not only do they have strong parents and grandparents, but they also have ancestors that were strong even before the villages was started _Of course the last thought that went through his head was _I was really enjoying my retirement, I'm not looking forward to all the paperwork that I'll have to do because of this._

**A/N:** I'll say this now that I am a Hina/Naru fan so this pairing can be expected. Also I have yet to think how much of the original story I'll deviate from, other than several OC's ( and expect at least one more OC for now, maybe in a chapter or two).

Also I'm not sure if I got the name of the forehead protectors right, I seen others use this name, but I have yet to find the name, I hope that is correct. As for Rin and Kurenai, well I decided to add Rin since no one knows where she's at and I decided to make her Mina's former student, since she was about 15 at this time and was said to be a chunin at 13. That means that Mina could have became an ANBU again once her team split for those that would tell me something about ANBU not having students.

If I us something that is the creation of another artist without citing or asking permission I am sorry, it is either because we think alike or I liked your idea and it gave me ideas and couldn't remember the pen name or story later to properly ask, but I will apologize if that happens.

The ANBU commander thing was just an idea, I don't know if one exists in Naruto. We know that each ANBU unit has a captain and reports to the Hokage, but I thought what if there was an ANBU that ranked above the others and commanded all teams. Serving a role between the Hokage and ANBU devision somewhat like a four-star general to the President or something.

As for the name and relation, well I and many other Naruto fans believe that the connection between the Yondaime/Naruto is father/son. One site I know has been trying to narrow it down and said that it's most likely Kazama Arashi or Uzumaki Arashi. Mina was just thought up by me since Naruto's mother was never mentioned either.

I know that there are a few that tried the siblings thing and the multi-demon thing, but I wanted to try anyway. The triplet thing came about from another thought, I wanted twins but couldn't decide whether to have a brother or sister, so I did both. Couldn't do older siblings because that would most likely give away Naruto parents from birth and couldn't do younger siblings because his parents died. As for the whiskers, it's well known that felines have them and I'm not sure about wolves so I gave Naruto's brother an extra set and his sister a one less.

Last the names. As I said I just made-up Mina and if the name means anything I have no clue. Hariken and Tatsuma I put a little more thought in. Seeing that even though Naruto is said to mean a ramen topping it also means a maelstrom or whirlpool and Uzumaki is a spiral. From what I learned Arashi is a tempest or storm. Anyway Hariken is obviously from harike-n which means hurricane and Tetsuma is from tetsumaki which is a tornado.

Sorry for the long a/n, but being my first this should be one of the few times it will be this long. All I can say now is what do you think? Am I off to at least a decent start? Suggestions and reviews are helpful.


	2. The Aftermath

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto. Masashi Kishimoto does, so thank him for Naruto.

Rated to be on the safe side.

**A/N: **I forgot to mention this before, but I like a little drama and romance. I'm not sure how good I am with action, but I'll try later. Some of the characters may be a little ooc, also I'm trying to think of the right personality for the oc's when they're older. Most likely I'll change some of the habits of Naruto which should be obvious by the graduation exam.

I might not answer reviews too often, but anyway thanks for the compliments. Sorry **Blondy-10-22**, but I have another idea for her that should not appear until after the Chunin exam and I think Sasuke has enough fangirls. **Dragon man 180** that part was a typo I missed in my last A/N, I was talking about Kurenai when I was talking about being Mina's student. It was suppose to say "As for Rin and Kurenai, well I decided to add Rin since no one knows where she's now and I decided to make Kurenai Mina's former student, since she was about 15 at this time and was said to be a chunin at 13." Also I was going to make a small mention of the Yondaime having Rin train under his wife a little.

"Speaking"

_Thinking _

"**Inner self/ Demon talking"**

_**Demon thinking **_

**The Burden of Three**

**2. Aftermath**

The elderly Hokage was correct when he thought that there was going to be a lot of paper work as a result of the demons' attack and the plan of the Yondaime. Thanks to careful planning and traps to distract more than harm the demons they had lost only half as many shinobi as in the prior war (which the originally guess to be double the last war), so even though they lost many shinobi they were still strong force among the other nations. Also most of the village was intact since the only destruction was caused by stray attacks, one of said attacks had struck the hospital and killed ten percent of the staff along with a dozen patients. The staff members that were killed included the ones that examined Mina. The death of those medic-nin left the truth of the Uzumaki's parentage on his shoulders since Jiraiya had left before it was discovered that she was having triplet and he would assume the "child" had died with it's mother.

The Sandaime Hokage had informed the entire village the next morning from the balcony of the Hokage's Tower and was waiting to see if the children would get the admiration that was requested for them by the heroes of Konoha before they died and so richly deserved, but he was sadden to see that most of the people and ninja of the village didn't see it that way. It seems that despite the great things that those of the village had very little confidence in the work of the strongest ninja of Leaf despite all the respect that they had. They believed that the demons were now personified in the children, which meant that they of the demon and their hosts/prisons were one in the same instead of two separate entities in one body with the children being in control. So they thought that the demons were the children with their powers sealed away instead of the demons sealed as prisoners inside the bodies of the children.

After that the Hokage had went to a meeting with the village council to discuss what to do with the Uzumaki triplets, but told the villagers to return in two hours to hear the decision. The members of the council consisted of the clan heads as well as his former team members, several representatives of the village, and the man that tried to take his position many years ago. In the meeting there were many things suggested that deeply saddened the old man. Among them were ideas of leaving the demons vessels in the wilderness to fend for themselves since they "were once beasts of the wild" or banishing them to another village, but the council soon realized that the children could be used against them if they survived. One idea was to use the children as weapons for the village and have a second seal to control them much like the Hyuga used on the branch house. That idea was denied by the Kage of Leaf, who said that they will be shinobi of Konohagakure and will not be simple weapons trained just to be emotionless tools branded with something the Yondaime was working hard to abolish (He really thought that doing that would eventually really make them into real demons). The suggestion that nearly made the Sandaime fall to the floor in shock was that many of those present were asking for the infants to be executed. He had to brace himself against the table to keep from falling and he made a decision.

The Sandaime stood up and began to speak, "I must say that hearing you say all of this is very disturbing. I believe that the Yondaime would be most ashamed to hear that what you are suggesting. I also can not believe that you have so little fate in Konohagakure's deceased leader. I suppose that this was to be expected. It seems that I can not have you treat these children as the heroes the Yondaime requested, but I can try to make so that they are treated like humans instead of the demons that the protect us from." The Sandaime paused a moment before looking at everyone in the meeting and speaking again, "As of this moment I there will be a law stated that no one will be aloud to speak of what has transpired with the demons being sealed within the three Uzumaki infants, all that are not of age or present to know of what has happened will simply be told that the demons were defeated by the Yondaime Hokage and ANBU commander. Those that break this law will be executed for going against the command of the Hokage."(I'm not exactly sure how he stated the law, but this was my guess)

All those in the meeting were a little stunned that he had accused them of going against the wishes of their previous Hokage and even more surprised by the law that he had just made. Many made their disagreement with his decision clear, but were effectively silenced by the glare of the old man. They soon realized that the discussion was over. Not long after the meeting, the Hokage stepped out on the balcony of his tower and informed the villagers of his decision. Of course he receive the same amount of disagreement from the people as he did in the meeting. It really broke the old man's heart that he had to threaten his own people with death just so they would treat three babies as human, and they were not even a full day old yet.

The elderly man decided to go check on the four kunoichi he left to watch over the children. He thought of the reasons he picked them as he walked to a small house that was on his property. The first reason was that he felt that the maternal instincts that usually lay dormant in females would awaken a little and help them. He was not sexist, he simply believed that women had better instincts concerning children than men. The next reason was their history, each one of them were orphans and did not lose any friends in the demon attack, so the only animosity that they would have to the demon was some of their village was destroyed and some allies died. Lastly was that they were all chunin, which meant they could protect the infant if they had to while he was away. The Sandaime let a small chuckle pass his lips as he thought that each of the young girls had a connection to the children without knowing it.

The first kunoichi was just named Rin since they were never able to find her family name, but she told everyone that tried to help her that it did not bother her because one day the man she would love would give her one. Her connection was that she was one of the surviving students of the children's father, who was like a father to her when she left the academy. She was about thirteen at the time and trying to gain the affection of her remaining ex-teammate with very little luck, but helping with the children would be a positive direction for her energy to be released.

The other three kunoichi were all on the same genin team Mina had taught for a couple of years in between serving ANBU, but despite the age differences that existed they all treated each other as sisters. Their names were Yuhi Kurenai, Uzuki Yugao, and Mitarashi Anko. To say that these young ladies were an odd group would be a serious understatement. Kurenai was always average, but the thirteen year old managed to greatly excel in genjutsu. Yugao was just an amazing ninja all around and once Mina gave her a blade there was no stopping her, this was almost unbelievable for a ten year old girl. (she does wield a katana in ANBU) Twelve year old Anko was the former student of a the Hokage's traitorous ex-student and barer of one the cursed seal he developed before leaving, this caused a lot of hate to be directed toward her and also lead her to Mina.

The unique link that the three kunoichi had with the mother of the three children was established about four years prior, almost a year before the end of the Great Shinobi War. Mina had sustained a small injury that put her off active duty as an ANBU or missions higher than C-ranked. Her husband was preparing to leave with his team when he suggested she try taking on her own team, joking with her by saying that the kids would keep her busy and maybe get her ready for when they start a family. After thinking about it for a few hours she decided to give it a try, she ended up with a nine year old red eyed girl that only strong features was genjutsu and perfect chakra control, a six year old purple haired girl that seemed a little quiet, and an eleven year old dark haired boy with pale pupil-less eyes. She later learned that the girls were orphaned because of the war and that the boy kept the stereotype of the Hyuga clan true by being an arrogant pain that would not pass a chance to talk about his "great"clan was and being "superior" to everyone else.

Mina rarely trained him with the girls because he would usually bring their spirits down by belittling them or he would be called away by his clan for training. About a year later one of the Hyuga main house elders requested that he placed on another team since the "inferior females were slowing down one of their clan's better warriors." It was a good thing that the war had ended and Arashi was back to restrain his wife or the Hyuga clan would have been burying one of their elders earlier than expected. A month prior to the request the Sandaime had announced that Arashi would be his successor and Orochimaru abandoned Konoha with his experiments discovered. With that there was also the problem of the now emotionally withdrawn Anko who was released from her interrogation, which was ordered by the village council. Mina was concerned for the girl and figured that since it was a man that caused this trouble she might be able to respond better if surrounded by females, so with that Anko became the fourth member of an all female team (Mina and the three genin). Anko did eventually open-up to her teammates and vent some a lot of the emotional pain she held inside her. After being a team for two years the three all passed a the previous chunin exam and Mina went back to ANBU, but she would meet with the girls when she could and the three still being young lived together. They never knew their sensai was pregnant over the months between them splitting up and her death because whenever she left home Mina would have a genjutsu placed on her that was so good that even Kurenai could not even detect it.

The girls were able to meet the students of the famous "Yellow Flash of Konoha" as well as the Yondaime himself because of the fact that their teachers were married. They became friends with Rin quickly, but could not get through to the one-eyed Kakashi. Rin later explained that they lost their other teammate in the war when Obito saved Kakashi and that he was still mourning their friend. The months prior to the demon attack it was not odd to see the four girls together, whether it was just talking or training with their former teachers. Many young men began to wonder if it would be as foolish to anger one of the young girls as it was to anger Mina.

The old man kept thinking to himself what would the young ladies do if they knew they were taking care of the children of the people that trained them and acted as their guardians. When he walked in the room silently he was ready to laugh again at the site that greeted him. The girls had standing in-front of the bassinets with their back to him and cooing to the two babies that was watching them with bright blue eyes, very faint giggles escaping the infants' mouths every so often.

The reason this was so amusing to the Hokage was that two of the girls had already developed a small reputation and another was developing one that this site would ruin. Rin he had expected this from since she was always kind hearted and preferred to heal than injure, but was just as deadly as any other chunin and a few jonin. Yugao didn't surprise him that much because of her being ten and never having sibling, but she was planning on being in ANBU like her teacher and her cooing a baby made her look even less threatening than her age. Kurenai surprised him because among the teenage boys she had developed the title of being the "Ice Princess" because of her coldness to others outside of her little group and said that if she kept this up she would be promoted to "Ice Queen" when she becomes an adult, but it seems that seeing the babies was enough to thaw her icy exterior. Anko was the biggest surprise considering her reputation was worse than Kurenai's, it seemed that three years wasn't enough to reduce the hatred that she received for her teacher's crime. Anko seemed to be an angry, sadistic, bloodthirsty loud mouth to anyone that didn't know her, but those that did knew it was a shell to hide the real her. Just like with Kurenai, it seems that all it took was one look at the babies' smiling face for her shell to crack. It warmed his heart to know that these four young girls proved that there are those that could look past the demons that the children held and see the innocent babies that have just been born into the world.

Sarutobi laughed silently before looking speaking, "I take it that these young ones haven't caused you any problems. Judging from your current happy appearance I will assume that you seven get along quite well. Maybe you four can aid me in deciding what I am to do with the little ones, the village council wasn't any help and I rather forget the suggestions that they had proposed." He had let out a tired sigh when he finished.

The girls were shocked at first when they heard the Hokage's voice, but soon relaxed. The looked back in the bassinets and saw Naruto let out a yawn, who was followed by his sister before they both joined their younger brother in sleep. (The Sandaime had informed the four of their names and how to distinguish the boys by their whisker-like "birthmarks")

Like the previous day, the Hokage had one serious thoughts on his mind while sitting in a chair at a rectangular table with two other chair across from him and one on either side for the others. He focused more on his thoughts as the girls began to sit. _What do you do with children that all or almost all of their home's population want them dead? How can they even hope for them to have a normal life with so many against them? Can we even protect them until they can protect themselves? I hope that Arashi and Mina didn't make a mistake when they trusted us with their legacy... _The final thought made him rub his eyes a little before he looked at the four young kunoichi around him.

Well that's it for this chapter.

**A/N: **Well this isn't exactly what I was hoping for with this chapter. I wanted to do more and do maybe a little time skip, but this was turning out a little longer than I planned. Instead of going forward with the story I ended up with more background in a day after the tragedy thing to clear up some things.

I'm not sure if anyone noticed, but I decided to make Kurenai and Rin slightly younger. They should both be about 15 or 16 at this time, but I decided to have them in their earlier teens to have them relate to children a little bit more than adults, also making them orphans of war and their age makes them uninfluenced by the hateful adults now and later. Also being the students of the ones that sealed the demons allowed them to have more faith in their teachers' abilities. I also like seeing females treated more fairly and I think that these four didn't appear enough, though creating styles for Yugao and Rin will take awhile since those two only had very few appearances in and out of battle. As for Anko, well Omegaguardian's _Cheerfulness Incarnate_ and VenomLord's _Life of Uzumaki Naruto _gave me the idea that she acts the way she does to hide her true self and scare others away because of her pain(there are probably other stories, but these are some of my favorites and the only ones I saw this in). The "Ice Princess" thing with Kurenai is from what I seen in several other stories that I can't remember at the moment, they had her called an "Ice Queen" and I thought that a babies melting the Ice Queen's cold exterior would be cute.

I was never sure what was the youngest that knew about Naruto and Kyuubi since Iruka was ten and Itachi was 5 when it happened, but both knew. So assume that everyone at least 7 years old know as well as young geniuses. Also I'm not sure how many were killed in the demon attack but I would assume they would lose as many as they did in a war, so with more demons it would be right to assume you'd lose at least twice or three times as many people. I wanted to make it less because I didn't like that the village lost more of it's defenses right after a war. Also I never was able to find out what was the population of the village or the actual number of shinobi, so I had to improvise a little.

I guess one last thing to say before someone complains is that there is a small mistake, I messed up the Sandaime's name in the last chapter by mixing up two some letter in his name and I have a feeling someone might bother me about the mistake. In the previous chapter I called him Saru**b**o**t**i when it's Saru**t**o**b**i. I will try to make sure I don't make these mistakes again, but I guess there will be very few complaints since I doubt many call him by his real name.

I have set a specific set of lengths for myself and will try to follow them, but I will not tell them so that I don't get complaints about not following my own guide. Hopefully I'll get them to age 7 by the next chapter or the one after that. Before anyone start expecting chapters to be updated as soon as this one, this came chapter was done because I had the first chapter already done, but had to wait a few days since I was a new user. I used that time for my profile and to start on this chapter.

One last thing, I don't like killing-off people I think are good, so in later chapters you will see that some of the characters that died in the series will still be alive.

The next update by the weekend hopefully and if I'm lucky I might start working on my other story. I have many ideas, just process leading up to them is long.


	3. The Decision

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto. Masashi Kishimoto does, so thank him for Naruto.

Rated to be on the safe side.

**A/N: **Well a little warning, there will be a little angst and depressing parts in this story, most likely will have several of those in the next chapter or two. I'll have Naruto's life a little better by having a couple more acknowledge him and his siblings being his lifelong friends, but his life will still be kinda bad since the there are probably a couple dozen people at most that don't hate him and his siblings. Also this chapter will give a little more background to several of the characters.

As for the suggestions, well you will have to see what is in my story. I want to say this before the story first, the idea of including Ibiki will take some thought since I already had ideas on how to include Kakashi and Hayate when I was writing the last chapter. I will definitely use the part about the house because I had an idea of what to do before, but I been thinking to myself that I should move that to a later time and putting them somewhere else will work nicely in place of my idea for now.

One last thing is that this is only the evening after the demon attack and The Uzumaki siblings are only 22 hours old. Considering the demons were sealed the previous night. I know that it seems unlikely that newborns would be so responsive so soon, but I like I said at the end of the last chapter "it was cute" and it added to their innocence. Last, I'll try to use a few of the honorifics that are normally used when speaking (like sama, dono, san, chan, & kun), but not all the time.

"Speaking"

_Thinking _

"**Inner self/ Demon talking"**

_**Demon thinking **_

**The Burden of Three**

**3. The Decision**

On the large property of the third Hokage sat a medium-sized two story house that looked like it could easily support a family or two. In the house there were three bassinets with three sleeping bodies inside them in the living-room. In the first one seen upon entering the room was the little whisker cheeked Uzumaki Naruto, oldest of the three Uzumaki siblings. In the one next to him was the girl and center (middle child) of the whiskered group, Uzumaki Tatsuma. In the last one was the youngest of the babies was Hariken. In the room next to them sat five people that were trying to determine their future, though four of them should have been too young to make such a decision.

The elderly Hokage looked at the young girls sitting around him for a moment before he began to speak, "It seems that most of the village can only see these young ones as the demons incarnate and not as the innocent children that you see them as. Sadly, I was not able to convince the villagers or the council to change their opinion and it is for that reason that I issued a law that even you four are to follow. The law is that no one is allowed to speak of the children having the demons sealed inside each of them and anyone who breaks this law will be executed, hopefully this will allow them to have a normal life with the younger generation."

The girls were a little shocked because they failed to see how anyone could confuse such cute babies with demons, to them the whisker cheeked infants resembled angels far more than demons. Since the were all mature for their ages they understood that the villagers were just looking for someone to blame, but they also knew that they didn't have to agree with it. The information hit Anko, since she knew from personal experience of feeling hatred for something that was not her choice. The four female ninja eventually gave a silent nod to the Hokage to indicate that they understood.

Saurtobi began speaking again after closing his eyes for a second, "Well that was one of the most depressing things that I had to do in my long life, but for now we need to know what to do with these babies. They are now orphaned and it seems that most of the village would rather see the demons die at the expense of these young lives than take care of them." He then paused as he noticed Yugao young face shift a little if pondering something.

The youngest of the group decided to voice her question when she noticed the silence "...Hokage-sama, You said that they were orphaned, do you mean to say that they have no family left, like us?" All four looked towards the older man and waited for his response.

The Sandaime closed his eyes for a few seconds to think of his words and replied "The answer to that question is yes and no. Their only remaining family unreachable at the moment. Their maternal grandfather, paternal grandmother, and their father's cousin are all alive, but they are currently away from the village and are extremely hard to locate. Also, the two on the father's side did not even know about the pregnancy and the one on the mother's side thought that his daughter was just having one child not three, so he would assume that the child died with the mother. I'm also unsure if it is wise to just put the responsibility of these three young lives in their hand considering that they don't even know the babies exist and they would probably have to separate the three. I can not tell you who they are either, right now it is best that the less that know the better. When I do reveal this information I will be sure to tell you first." He paused to think. He did not want to tell them that Arashi and Mina had requested not to have their parents informed because it would just cause more heartache for them after just losing their only children. All the girls looked down, knowing what it is like to be orphaned, but some of them had time with at least one of parents before the war unlike the Uzumaki's.

Kurenai's parents two of the five jonin that were sent on a mission to investigate Iwagakure (the Village Hidden Among Rocks) and were killed with their team, which marked the start of the Great Shinobi War when she was six (wars usually last months to years so I'd say this one lasted 4 years). Their death pushed her to work harder and graduate early. She wanted to help end the war that started with her parents lives.

Anko's mother had passed away at childbirth because of Orochimaru's earlier experiments, which she discovered just before he left and guessed that what he did was one of the reasons that she survived his cursed seal. Anko's father was one of the other experiments of the "experiments" and died two months after Orochimaru left, but he told Anko that her father had died five years ago (two years before he the Hokage found his lab) and took her as his apprentice. She spent the last week of for father's life by his side.

Rin was the only one of the four not to know her parents. Rin was about seven months old with she was found by a young Inuzuka woman was training her genin daughter Tsume some advanced tracking skill in the forests surrounding Konoha with the bodies of her parents, who had no identification. The two had gave the parents a proper burial in the forest and took the baby back to their village. They took care of Rin until she reached genin and had Arashi become her guardian, because the sad fact was that only to join the Inuzuka clan was by birth or marriage. They were able to give her marks. The Inuzuka clan had a set red fang-like marks that were on each of their cheeks to mark their clans allegiance with their canine partners. They had placed a set of orange rectangles on her face, this marked her as a friend to the clan and to be known to the canines that she was under their protection.

Yugao's parents were both ANBU and were killed on an S-class mission when she was five. They were to infiltrate Iwa (**Iwa**gakure if you haven't guessed) with their ANBU team and kidnap someone close to the Tsuchikage to use in a deal to end the war. Of course the hostages would have little or no harmed done to them (a little if they fought back) since the village doing the kidnapping was Konoha, but the leader of Iwa would have to negotiate peace if he wanted them back. The couple had went to the village to get their hostage while the captain and third teammate stayed near the outside of the country's border to clear the way of possible enemies. They were able to get the son of the Tsuchikage without any trouble, but when they reached the border of the Land of Earth they ran into the resistance. At the border stood a dozen of Rock's upper jonin who informed the two that their rest of their team was being distracted by several lower jonin several miles away. Despite the strength of the two, they were outnumbered by shinobi that were just as skilled and experienced as they were. The two Konoha ninja were able kill all but three of their enemies before they died. The weakened Stone nin went back to their village with their leader's son and left the bodies of their enemies where they fell. The rest of their team had found battle ground a twenty minutes later, defeating their distraction and wondering where their teammates were. Upon finding the battle field, the two grabbed the bodies of their fallen allies and left their enemy bodies since it would be very likely that the enemies would return to retrieve or destroy the bodies to protect their village's secrets. (Think back to the hunter-nin explanation) When the ANBU returned with the mission as a failure they buried the bodies of their friends in Konoha and informed Yugao. She was crushed, but used their memory to push herself to make genin the next year. Her parents and teacher were the ones that inspired her to want to become a member of ANBU.

The three children sleeping in the living-room still had family, but it seemed that only the Hokage knew of their relation. This little thought brought the four girls out of their moment of recollection. The four were now wondering what was going to happen with the Uzumaki triplets, but then remembered that was what they were talking about before they started to remember their pasts.

The Hokage noticed that he had the girls attention again and began to speak once more, "Well as I was saying, the village seems to be against taking the children in. That would mean that neither an orphanage or adoption are real options considering that families that adopt them might have the hate directed towards them and maybe violence as well. The technically have a home, but their parents requested that they do not live in it before I determine that they are ready and because of that I decided to let them live here until they are ready to receive their parents home. For now I have to find some guardians for them and I already know that you four want to volunteer, but you are too young for this job and you have ninja duties to preform as well." The old man looked at the young kunoichi hopefulness in their faces change to depression as he prepared to continue, "I was planning to search through the village and see if I can find caretakers that could raise them until they were old enough to be on their own, but it seems that it would be harder than I thought."

The girls nodded as he spoke, still a little sad that they could not take care of the babies. What the Sandaime said next caused them to give him their full attention. "Well I could change my plan a little. I could make you three their unofficial guardians, having you live with them and take care of them as long as it doesn't interfere with your shinobi duties. Of course I'll still have to get a couple of more experienced people to watch over and take care of the babies."

Sarutobi chuckled a little when he saw the hopeful look return to the girls' faces. This could workout better than he already thought. His first plan was to send them to an orphanage that would take care of them until they were adopted or old enough to be on their own, but now he realized that his previous idea would be a grave mistake if he went through with it. Not only would they most likely not take proper care of the children and treat them poorly, but the orphanage would allow easy access for assassination attempts for revenge on the demons inside them. With them living with the four kunoichi he would be sure that they were properly taken care of by their caretakers and have adequate protection. He was positive that the girls smiling in front of him would be the best chance the of the three blond babies of having happiness in their life.

Not long after the Hokage had told the girls his decision he had them move their things into the house. It was a little larger than it appeared. On the base floor there was there was the living area that could easily fit a couple dozen people, the dining room that the five were talking in, a nice sized kitchen, and three bedrooms that were each big enough for two people. On the second story of the house were four more of the same sized bedrooms that were on the floor below, a master bedroom that was twice as big as the other rooms, and a glass door that lead to a balcony looking over the back yard. Despite the size of the house, it was like a guest house compared to the Hokage's home and the land that it sat on. Yugao and Anko took a couple of the downstairs bedrooms while Kurenai and Rin took two of the upstairs bedrooms. They set-up the room closest to the master bedroom for the Uzumaki's, because they had decided that they would move the children into the larger room when on their third birthday and it would be easier to move them in.

The Hokage just needed to have items need for the infants sent to the home since he already had the home furnished and stocked for if he needed to house others. A week after the attack the kunoichi were completely moved into the house and the Sandaime was able to find two people that were willing to help raise the children. One was his younger sister (by 2 years) Asuka, who was a great help to him in raising his sons Asuma and Sasumata. The other was a forty-three year old retired shinobi named Lei and raised five sons with his wife before she passed away. The former female Sarutobi (former since her name changed with marriage) had chose the room across from the children's while Yugao's room was next to hers and Kurenai's was next to the children's room. The Lei's room was on the first floor and the nearest one to the kitchen.

Finding people to help the girls take care of the babies was one of the Sandaime's biggest concerns. He did not want to doubt the girls, but he just thought that they were a little too young to have that kind of responsibility to deal with added to their shinobi life. They had no experience with even younger sibling and would be at less of an advantage than new parents that could usually go to their parents or friends for advice. He was looking over the information for Lei when his sister had came to his study to see him. She had been lonely since her husband died years ago and she was unable to bare children, which was the reason she help Sarutobi raise his boys and eventually moved into their house when they offered the widow. She talked to her brother about his problem and hearing his concerns about the children, but she had heard what the village thought about the Uzumaki's when the announcement was made the other day. Personally she thought that the children were not demon since her older brother was willing to put all his fate behind the work of the Yondaime. She thought to herself that she could be of great help with the three because she helped raise her brother's children into fine young men.

The Sandaime thought that his sister would be the best choice as the primary caregiver, while Lei would be there to assist her with preparing the things she requested and buying the needed items. The elderly Hokage was curious how the children would turnout when they grew up, because his sister did have a reputation for helping raise some of the village's best shinobi. She started by watching Tsunade and Jiraiya, which gave Sarutobi the idea of having them on his team. The she started watching Konoha's White Fang, Hatake Sakumo. She would later bring together the one of the most successful Ino-Shika-Cho trio's in the three families history together and introduced the three to their future wives back when they were children. She was also the one that was trusted to help raise the triplet's parents and Kakashi. Despite the fact that Asuka did not have her own children, most of the shinobi were still asking her for advice on raising their children. That included Hyuga Asahi, Uchiha Mikoto, Inuzuka Tsume, and even the wives of the Ino-Shika-Cho trio. His personal feelings aside, the old man felt that he made the right choice in who were to help the girls raise the Uzumaki triplets. _Well I'm glad that I'm going in the right direction with these three, since I have a feeling that Arashi and Mina would have asked for my sister's advice. After all, when the who better to raise the three children of The Yellow Flash and Flaming Tigress than the one that helped raise those two? Especially since the parents of the two are unavailable._

**A/N: **Well now to explain some things. Yes I decided to make them have some family left, but they will not be revealed before the chunin exam, though some might make some good guesses. The story of these four was never done in much detail. Also I'm sure if anyone checked out the sites with age data, they'd know that the most of the shinobi that were adults during the kyuubi attack are now the parents of most of the rookie, I assume that this means most of the adult shinobi of that time were killed during the attack since most of the current ninja were either preteens or teens (which I reduced, but kept the parent of some gone).

As I said, not much is known about the past of four I picked, like how Orochimaru became Anko's teacher or anyone else's past. Rin's part came from an article I read that stated some thought she was an Inuzuka from the marks on her cheek, but was said to be wrong since the marks were different. So I decided to make my own explanation. Asuka just came as a random idea for the character and the background was the same, I figured who better for the Sandaime to trust the three to than a sibling and I figured I'd give her more connections. Also I kinda like the Inuzuka(though Kiba's attitude bothers me at times), so that's why Tsume was mentioned so much. If you don't know this is Kiba and Hana's mother, while Makoto is Sasuke and Itachi's mother. Last, before anyone gets concerned about Asahi being a lot like Arashi, I stated that Arashi means "a storm or tempest", but Asahi means "morning sun". I used this since Hiashi is "daytime" and Hinata is "sunny place". Also just because names are similar doesn't mean those people have to be related, like (Hyuga) **Hana**bi and (Inuzuka) **Hana** are two examples"

As for the "Flaming Tigress" name, I figured I'd give Mina a title like the Yondaime was the "Yellow Flash". Most ninja are given names for their known traits or jutsu. He was known as the "Yellow Flash because of his Hiraishin no Jutsu, Kakashi is known as the "Copy Ninja" for his sharingan, and the Sandaime was known as the "Professor" because of his vast jutsu arsenal. So I have Mina known for her tiger mask and powerful fire jutsu (as well as the flame style cloak Arashi gave her).

Sasumata is a two pronged weapon used to catch criminals according to a translation I looked at from looking for the meaning Asuma's name and I just added him for that little debate of is Asuma Konohamaru's dad or uncle, so he will be Konohamaru's dad, but will have little or no mention later unless I change my mind. As for the name Saurtobi it is well known that this is the Sandaime and Asuma's family name, but the Sandaime's first name is never mentioned. That is most likely because he currently have no equal that are familiar enough in the series that can call him by his name.


	4. Troubled Childhood

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto. Masashi Kishimoto does, so thank him for Naruto.

Rated to be on the safe side and this chapter will be one of the reasons.

**A/N: **As I have warned, there will be a bit of pain and angst in this chapter I guess. This one was hard because I didn't want to hurt them and especially not while they are still young, but I said they would have a few problems. Also I know some fans don't like this, but I have developed a bloodline limit for them that will make an appearance and I will burrow one bloodline for them that I so far only seen two people use(but had Naruto obtain it differently). So that means it's not the sharingan, the byakugan, any other clan ability. Last there will be a small skip in here, I want to get to their genin days soon and I'm taking longer than I planned.

"Speaking"

_Thinking _

"**Inner self/ Demon talking"**

_**Demon thinking **_

**The Burden of Three**

**4. Troubled Childhood**

After about two months, Yugao was inducted into ANBU and was serving under Kakashi along side Uchiha Shisui and an odd teen named Tenzo, who preferred to be called the Moku because of his unique ability to do wood jutsu like the Shodai (First) Hokage. Rin spent most of her time in the Hokage's tower reading over the medical notes of Tsunade that the Hokage had given her. Anko had met a young man named Ibiki and he had convinced her to take classes in interrogation and torture, which she seemed to be doing quite well in. Kurenai was home most of the time working on her genjutsu and other training when not on mission because of all the space the home had access to. Though the teams were separated with their activities, they were still able to spend time with each other and the infants. At the moment they were all out in village preforming their individual duty when something tragic was in the process of happening.

It was about two hours since Asuka had given the three their bottles and she decided to see if they were still sleeping from their afternoon nap. She remembered that she was alone with the children since Lei was out for some errands as she walked into the children's room and felt something was strange, but couldn't understand what it was. When she went to the cradles she saw that the babies looked a little red and their faces were scrunched as if they were about to cry. That was when she realized what it was that seemed so strange. The room was always so quiet that anyone with minimum ninja training could easily detect the soft breaths of the babies, let alone the Hokage's sister. Their breathing was kind of irregular and somewhat labored. She placed one of her hands to each their foreheads one at a time and noticed that they all had a very high fever, so high that most would be quite concerned if an adult was that ill.

Asuka ran down the steps as fast as she could and happened to run in to a tired Yugao who had just took off her mask, signaling that her shift was over. Asuka quickly began to speak as soon as she saw the purple haired ANBU, "Oh Yugao, thank Kami that you're here! I was just checking on the babies since they usually take a nap after their feeding and wake up a couple hours later, but when I checked they were looking very ill and they are running very high fevers. I need you to go get a doctor, Rin, the Hokage, or anyone you could think of that could help and make it fast! They might not last long without medical attention." She hurried back to the children's room once she finished and tried not to cry.

To say the young girl was surprised would not have done the her mental state any justice. She was hoping for a nice relaxing evening of talking to the others, learning how to cook from the others with Anko, and maybe playing with the Uzumaki babies. Once the older woman stopped talking Yugao was out of the house and on her way to the Hokage's Tower and the hospital as fast as possible, her exhaustion forgotten.

Asuka paced nervously as she watched over the ill infants and waited for help. She had just left the room toward the front door to see if anyone was nearing the house when Anko and Rin both entered with a fast pace. They were apparently on their way home from their shift ending like Yugao when they ran into the young ANBU and heard the news. They quickly entered the children's room without even acknowledging Asuka's presence. Rin began to try to heal them as fast as she could and had some effect, but it not much since she didn't know the cause and she didn't want to stop because she felt that if she stopped she might loose one.

Anko in a fit of rage turned around quick as a striking snake and grabbed the elderly woman by her shirt, then began yelling "What the hell did you do! I know for a fact that these three were just fine when we left and when we return we find them dying!"

What Anko failed to see was that the older woman was close to losing her own composure when before she was grabbed. Anko's yelling was the last thing needed to break the wall holding back her emotions and the older woman fell to her knees crying while explaining what had happened "...I don't know! All I did was make the give them three bottles each today, bathe them, and watch them a little as they slept before returning to my room for a couple hours to write in my journal. I left but my and their doors open to hear and see anything that happened. Other than that Lei came to my door to tell me he had so errands to run before leaving...I don't know what happened to them. Please tell me that they will be alright! Please..." After that the woman sadden state got the better of her and she could no longer make complete words anymore.

Anko let the woman go and walked downstairs to the kitchen. All of the trouble was stressing her out greatly and aggravated her dormant cursed, causing a little pain in the back of her neck. She took out a glass from the cabinet began to pour some water from the refrigerator, but failed to notice that it was the water used for the formula that the infants drink. After taking a sip Anko's eyes went a little wider and she spit it out immediately. Some say Anko is sadistic, some say that she's somewhat insane, but one thing they learned about Anko's skills is that thanks to her teacher she has a large knowledge of poisons. From that one sip she detected a poison that is usually used by Konoha ninja for assassination and that there was enough in that water to kill a healthy adult male within three hours if a full glass was ingested(she sipped and spit before it could hurt her). She had three thoughts running through her head as she put the glass down and ran up the stairs. _So they were poisoned...and boiling the poison-infected formula would have spread it to throughout the liquid and have them drink all of it. I have to admit that, despite being disturbing that someone would poison the bottle water infants, that it's amazing that they survived this long considering most adults would be dead by now. But the real question is who did it..._That last thought reached her mind as she entered the room again, only being five minutes since she and Rin arrived home.

Anko spoke as loud and fast as she could "Rin! Their bottle water had a high amount of assassin grade poison in it from the village! You extract it as best you can while I go to the hospital and get some of the antidote." Anko was gone before she even had time to see Rin doing what she said or the fact that Yugao and the Hokage were both in the room.

Now that Rin knew what the problem was she was able to extract the poison from the three little bodies and put it a small jar that she had in her vest. Anko arrived another five minutes later with the antidote and poured it in Rin's glowing hands, one of he antidote's unique features. Some poison antidotes could not be use simply by injecting the patient or having them swallow it because how poisons attacked the bodies, sometimes getting to the more vital areas before they could be neutralized and killing the infected. The mix that Anko had was to be applied to a medic-nin's healing chakra and heal the infected patient much like they heal other wounds, this was developed since most medic-nin have little success removing the poison and healing the infected areas. Rin was good, but would need another month or two to perfect the ability of healing without the aid of antidotes.

Not long after the triplets were resting peacefully in good health and all the adults shared a sigh of relief now that the infants were no longer in danger. With that they all went to the dining room, making sure that the baby-monitor was on before leaving out.(remember they do have some technology) Anko went to the kitchen to get the water and the others waited at the table for her.

When Anko walked in she nearly slammed the pitcher on the table and began to speak with an angered tone, "I'll say this, one of the few things I'm thankful for from my bastard of an ex-sensai is that I can detect a drop of poison in or on just about anything from one taste and there some in this water." She then pulled out a small bag from her pouch and poured some white powder in the water. After a few seconds the water turned white, then dark purple and she began again, "That is a special mix that I made with the help of Mina-sensai, it turns a certain color no matter what liquid it's placed in. First if the liquid has a color or no color the powder will turn it white, then it will change colors depending on what is in it. Staying white means that it's safe, yellow means that it's some kind of drug to knock you unconscious, yellow means a paralysis of some kind, a light violet means that there is some poison in it, and this color that you see means that it's highly concentrated. From what I tasted and can tell this stuff could kill a normal adult male in a couple of hours, a ninja just a few more hours if not doing exerting himself too much, and a baby should have been killed ten minutes after drinking that. I don't know if I should be amazed at them or furious at whoever did this!"

The Sandaime Hokage just stroked his beard as he sat there and spoke his mind, "Well it could be a kekkei genkai (bloodline limit) activating, though I don't recall any of their family resisting such a strong dose of poison. It could possibly be the demons are helping them, after all if the children die the demons die." He noticed that the others were looking at him once he mention a blood limit and sighed as he began to explain, knowing that they did not know their teachers had blood limits. "Their father's ability was **hentsuu (adaptability)** and their mother's was **katoku** (inheritance). They are kekkei genkai that are always activated and seldom visible, for that reason most would not notice the ability. The hentsuu ability allows the body to adapt to nearly anything. For instance, if the person with this ability working on speed and strength with weights they adjust faster and gain more than others. Also their bodies are more resilient because of this, their father was a good example of this. Their mother's katoku ability allows the offspring of that person to have the strengths of the strengths and abilities of both parents and five generations prior. So both parents and grandparents were strong with a great about of chakra and endurance, what this means is that they will literally be bundles of energy."

The five listened and was amazed and curious of how powerful the three would be when they are older. They all were thinking about something other than the danger the triplets were in until Yugao spoke a question she had wanted to ask for a long time. "Oh...Hokage-sama, I was wondering what was that strange mark on the babies right shoulders? If it were not for the color I'd assume they were unique birthmarks, but the odd color makes them look more like little tattoos." Once Yugao said that all the others thought back to when they saw the mark she was talking about. On each one of the three infants' right shoulder sat a swirl that looked very much like the symbol that was on the vests that the chunin and jonin wear, the only difference was that the swirl was the reverse of the one that others wore and they were sky blue instead of red.

The Sandaime chuckled as he remembered what the young girl was talking about and guessed he could be truthful since most of the village had forgotten about it. "Well ladies I guess you can say it is a birthmark. As you know in this village we have many clans that are recognized by certain traits or their kekkei genkai, but there was one individual that that thought wanted something for his descendants to have as a means to be recognized as well. He had unique traits, but thought they might not be inherited since his brother showed now signs of his abilities. So he had created a jutsu that would place his clan symbol on his arm and all those that would be a direct descendant of him. He and his brother were the last of their clan, but had a lot of influence on the village's development. Because of their influence the village council adopted an altered version of their clan symbol. Most of the village forgot how we developed our symbol and only a few people even know about the birthmark. At the moment there are only four people in the world that have his mark on their arm."

They all sat there digesting this information for a few seconds and began an hour long discussion about who poisoned the babies, as well as some side talk about their future abilities. They immediately knew that it was someone that wanted them dead because of the demons. Their first thought was to check the source of water and see if that was the cause, but that was proven useless when it was discovered that the water and other drinks in the were untouched. (They used Anko's powder to check a couple ounces of all the opened drinks) Their next thought that someone might have been able to sneak in and poison the water, but is was doubted that anyone would be able to get past four of the best kunoichi and an ex-kunoichi unnoticed.(Asuka was a chunin instructor like Iruka when not helping raise children) There was also the fact that an intruder would not know which pitcher of water was for the babies. Asuka had calmed down enough to realize that Lei still had not arrived back yet.

Lei had arrived about an hour after the realization of his absence hit Asuka. As Lei walked in his room he was in for a very bad surprise. Sitting in the chair at his desk was Kin, Yugao was sitting on the desk, Kurenai was leaning against the wall with her arms folded, and Anko was laying across his bed with a very familiar book in her hand. He recognized it as his private journal that he kept locked in the desk draw and began to panic as he realized that they must have read it.

Anko was just lazily flipping through the pages as if she was just casual reading one of her romance books and looked up at Lei as if just noticing he was there. "Oh, there you are Lei, we were wondering where we disappeared to. We came to your room to find you, but instead all we find is the little book full of the most interesting things just sitting here on your bead begging for someone to read it." She paused for a second to turn the page, while Lei was sweating heavily as he knew that he had his journal locked in the desk and they must have searched his room. "Let's see, father of three, a loving husband, retired two years ago for injury, oldest son killed in jonin exams a few years back, other two sons stayed chunin and were killed in the initial attack of the demons, wife killed in the hospital by stray blast from the demons, and altered files to get closer to the Uzumaki's. Even went to the trouble of waiting a couple of months and getting a very potent poison, which you still had half of in the bottle. Very interesting, wouldn't you say girls?" The others just nodded while glaring at the terrified man.

Lei let out a tired sigh and chuckled. "Well I may be caught, but I still managed to kill those demons. The village will probably thank me. Now that they are gone, I don't care what happens t...what are you grinning about?" He stopped when he noticed a disturbing grin on the girls faces.

Anko decided to speak for the others, "Well it seems that you might have failed in your plans, those little ones are tougher than anyone would give them credit for. Right now they are sleeping peacefully in their cradles, resting from the exhaustion put on their small bodies to fight the poison until we could help."

Lei had paled and started to back out of the room when he bumped into Yugao's ANBU unit. The Hokage was standing behind them and ordered them to take him away. With the problems taken care of the elderly man had put the three children in his sister and the four young kunoichi care, and only those five. He hoped that would help the children live better.

The next six years it seemed were not any better for the Uzumaki triplets it seemed. After the first assassination attempt by Lei, it seemed that others decided to try their luck. Rin had determined that the children had been poisoned nearly every poison known to the ninja world, but there was a good thing about that. Because of the demons healing the children, they were seldom in any real danger and would look as if they were just ill. Also their hentsuu allowed them to build up an immunity to the poisons. Then there were the one that tried to do physical harm without poisons. Within the six year the girls had to stop an assassination attempt almost twice month, which brought the total to over a hundred attempt not including the poisons. That is one reason that the children were seldom left alone outside the house, always with one of them when walking through the village, and never allowed out at night.

Sadly, no matter how much they wanted to, the girls could not go with the three everywhere once they began to explore the area around their home at around five years old. Because of that some villagers or ninja that hated the demons would with until the women would leave the children unattended and attack. To say that the kunoichi were angered by their actions would be an massive understatement. The hospital usually had more than three patients arriving after each attack. Between the attacks and the glares, the children were a little frightened to be around adults they were unfamiliar with. Some of the villagers found a way around the young women by having their children bully the three, but most just made their children stay away from the young.

The saddest moment for the unique family happened when the three were kidnapped. Kurenai, Rin, Anko, Yugao, Asuka, and the Sandaime pretty much turned the village upside-down looking for them, as well as a few ninja that didn't have a problem with them. They did not find the three until a month later looking filthy, starved, beaten, and traumatized. It took almost six months of work to get the children back to their normal hyperactive happy selves. The kidnappers were eventually caught, they stupidly bragged on what they did to the kids to other shinobi. Because it was ninja that kidnapped them, there were many things they could have done in addition to beating and starve the children. But they would not now what that terrible time did to the triplets or what it did for them for a long time.

Some of the thoughts that was going through the Sandaime Hokage's mind disturbed him. _It seems that there are some areas in this village that can block my crystal ball. I still don't understand how anyone can do that to children. It took Rin, Kurenai, and Inoichi at least three months to clear all the mental and physical damages done, not to mention the images that Inoichi seen were very disturbing. Odd that he did not come across the demons while in the minds of those three, but after the damage was repaired__ he did say that they had the most complex minds he seen in anyone. It seems that Ibiki will be able to test the skills he has been learning. Also the burden that caused them all that pain is also the reason that they are even alive now. I guess carrying the demons will be both a curse and a gift for them._

**A/N:** A simple thing with the children's separate water thing, my older sister and a friend of the family use to keep separate bottles/pitchers of water for their children when they were babies and themselves/visitors. I figured I'd use that.

The kekkei genkai were some ideas that I was considering. The sharingan is often used and I wanted to try something else, though I might take some of the lesser abilities of the sharingan later (most likely how they perceive things to be moving slower and seeing through most genjutsu). Hentsuu I mentioned mean adaptability and katoku means inheritance. I original wanted to have both as combined and come from their father and have their mother have a dormant eye ability that canceled the sharingan, but I turned that idea down. I figured genetic dojutsu (eye techniques) were being overly used and I'll have the demons do something with their eyes later, after all the red eyes should have some abilities if Naruto can react faster when Kyuubi powered.

How hentsuu works I'll use my poison example. If poisoned and a little by a specific poison, they would build up an immunity to it in days and weeks rather than years, but I decided to have poisons still affect them. The will not die from any poison they are immune to, but will be affected to a certain degree depending on how potent it is to them. This ability will also help with training by making them adapt to their routines faster and things of that nature.

The katoku was the one that I really liked. Most if not all kekkei genkai can be inherited by descendants, but some don't pass on. This one works in two parts: 1. it takes some of the traits that the parents had prior to the children's birth and give them to their children, like how I said that because of their parent they will have a extremely large amount of chakra and endurance; 2. if the ancestry of up to 5 generations on either side of the family back had an ability then the they have a high chance of activating that ability. For example if Mina's great-great-great grandfather was an Uchiha and all the defendants of that Uchiha were never able to activate the sharingan up until her, then there is a chance that she could use it. Add the hentsuu ability to the mix would make ability a permanent active blood limit in the family. As a loophole, the two are also a blood limit creator, hentsuu create help unique abilities in then Uzumaki's and the katoku would pass it and their spouses' abilities on to their descendants.

The birthmark I been wanted to explain, but it slipped my mind and I decided to get that out of the way. The idea of the birthmark came from Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits. The main characters (Kharg/Darc) had a birthmark on their right arm, and all those that were descendants of the leader of a clan would have that birthmark somewhere on their body since their father had it on his right cheek I think and their grandfather had it on his back over one of his kidneys. The birthmark I did is like the jewel on the necklace that I mentioned in the first chapter.

Hopefully the next two chapters will cover their academy years and focus more on the Uzumaki's, though I might go a little faster if feel that it's taking too long again. I want to focus on the triplets, but until they get in the academy they have minor roles and I focused more on background info. Right now I'm debating how my story will branch off with their training, so it might take me longer.

Well I hope you like this story so far.


	5. Academy Years, Part 1

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto. Masashi Kishimoto does, so thank him for Naruto.

**A/N:** If anyone is curious as to why I use both feet/inches and centimeters, it's because I want to give a rough idea of height for those that may use the metric system and those that don't. I plan to do the same with weight, I think that this might help a little without causing anyone to make a random guess if they don't use that form of measurement.

"Speaking"

_Thinking _

"**Inner self/ Demon talking"**

_**Demon thinking **_

**The Burden of Three**

**5. Academy Years, Part 1**

At seven years old the three Uzumaki's were ready to begin going to the academy. Of course they could have started when they were younger since Yugao has said she was already a genin when she was their age, but the young women were hesitant about letting the three out of their sights and the previous year had proved that they had a right to worry. It took a lot of pleading, but the three were able to convince their guardians to let them attend the academy after they made a promise. About a month before they would begin in the academy, the triplet would begin to train. Each person had their own form of training.

Kurenai's training consisted of the three learning to mold chakra with the proper hand seals and studying so that they at least can read, write, and know some of the things that they would be taught in the academy. She planned on working on chakra control exercises after they learn to properly draw their chakra out. Rin's training involved more studying as well as learning about medical herbs, medicine, and information concerning medical jutsu that she would teach them after they learn better control. The demons may have healed the children faster than normal, but it was good for them to know medical things in case they were to hurt to heal on their own or there was an injured ally. Yugao had decided to start teaching them some taijutsu, also she decided to teach them some of the basic styles of armed combat (with wooden and blunt weapons of course). Finally, Anko would make them exercise with some weights. Over the month they were adjusting to the weights, which were started at five pound (2.25 kg) a limb and a vest weighing fifteen pounds (6.8 kg), but Anko warned them that she would be adding about five pounds a limb and ten pounds to the vest either every six months or whenever they seem to have completely adjusted to the weight. The weights were special ones because of their many functions and appearance. The weights looked like black leather bracers that could go on the wrists and ankles, while the vest looked like a plain black vest. One of the great things about the bracers was that they could automatically adjust to the proper size of the person that wears them. Another great thing was that you could store chakra inside them for later use. The last thing was the weight seal, you could add weight just by preforming two hand seals and channeling chakra directly into the seal until the desired weight was reached. Also it had a special seal on them that only allowed certain people the ability to reduce or increase the weight, and those people were only the four kunoichi, the triplets, Asuka, and the Sandaime Hokage. That may have been to many people to have access to the weight changing ability, but there may have been a time that the three were unconscious and unable to reduce the weight for someone the carry them to safety. Other than that they worked as added protection by all having chain-mesh woven into each item.

When the day finally came, Kurenai had decided to take the three to the academy, but she had been asked by the Hokage to escort the several other children that were going for their first time. She began to walk to the Uchiha district with the triplets behind her. All three were still wearing their weights as Anko ordered, but other clothes. Naurto was wearing green shorts and a white shirt with a orange swirl on it, Hariken was wearing a black shorts and a blue shirt with a black swirl like his brother's, and Tatsuma wanting to be like her brothers was wearing black shorts and a smaller white shirt with a black swirl. The vests were left open over their shirt and the bracers went with the vests well enough that they were not that noticeable.

As they walked Kurenai missed the glares that was being sent to the children behind her, but the three the glares were directed at didn't miss them. The triplets began to have one of their silent conversations. _You would think that they would realize that we are not the big, scary, and furry ones by now, but it seems that they are as narrow minded as ever brothers? _ The young blond girl thought to her brothers. That's right, it seems that the incident the previous year hand pushed them further than anyone knew.

When Inoichi had told the Hokage that the three had the most complex minds that he had ever seen, he didn't realize because of the trauma that they went through the three young blonds were able to break the mental barrier that blocked their mental bond. The "big, scary, and furry ones" comment can only mean three creatures, yes their treatment brought them so close to death that the demons revealed themselves to the children while healing them.

_Well what do you expect sis. I don't know what they think we are, but when you think about it who would you rather harm and hate, big powerful demons that can kill you in an instant or weak little kids that can't even protect themselves? _Hariken had thought back.

Naruto, not being one to left out, joined the conversation. _Well they should know that we're not them since if we were them we would either destroy the city or be making plans to do so. Not to mention we wouldn't be planning to become ninja to protect them or gain their acceptance. That's why they will have no choice but to do just that when I become Hokage while you two become my assistants and most trusted ninja._

Hariken mentally laughed at what his brother said. _Knowing what they think of us, they would sooner believe that it is a means to "regain our former strength" than to protect them and gain respect or acceptance._ He paused his thoughts for a second before continuing. _It is believed to be impossibly hard for any of us to gain either from them by the looks that we receive, but you know what I say "If life was easy, then it wouldn't be fun."_

The the other two laughed in their minds as they agreed with their younger brother's words. Though the three had to deal with assassination attempts, the glares and hatred of their village, and feel more pain than even some ninja would ever had to feel, these three were happy children. It was true that they wish that they had known their parents or who they were, they would sometimes feel depressed about never knowing their whole family, and they would send their own glares back at the village from time to time, but they had each other and their guardians. To them, the four Kunoichi were like older sisters, Asuka was like a grandmother, and the Hokage was like a grandfather, but they didn't have a mother or father. They were happy that they at least had six people that acknowledged them, but they were planning on working hard to make the village would as well one day.

_Well that's true Hariken, but even you have to admit that it would be nice if it was a little easier. Like maybe they stop trying to kill us. Well I can't wait until we're strong enough to defeat them ourselves and stop acting like we don't know what's going on. I hate hiding that we are smarter and better than we let on to the others. _Tetsuma thought to the others.

_Well sis, would you believe that students that kids not even a first year academy student is able to mold chakra properly with some basic control or have be as intelligent as those twice their age? _Naruto thought back to her.

_Umm...what about Rin-nee-chan's_(hope this is right) _friend Kakashi and Yugao-nee-chan? I thought that both of them were genin when they were younger than us. _Hariken decided to point out something they all were told once.

Naruto mentally sighed, _Okay, think of it this way. Which would concern you more if you hated a demon host, a smart and strong one or an apparently weak and possibly foolish one?_

_Is that why you suggested that we don't show our true skills and intelligence, as well as hide the fact that we doubled our weights? _The blond girl asked her older brother

"**Well I must say that was surprisingly smart of the pup to suggest, if I didn't know any better I'd think that Kyuubi was giving him advice." **A feminine voice said to the triplet's minds.

_Rukubi, I thought that we had a deal. You and the others don't interrupt our conversations and we don't bother yours when you three use our link. _The young girl said to the wolf in her body, with an emphasis on the word "our" to remind the demon.

It seems that as another side effect to trying to help their host, the demons were able to communicate with their hosts as easily as the blonds communicate to each other. Also, the demons were able to talk to each other or all of the children because of their hosts' unique bond, the only draw back was that the demons could hear everything that the children think to each other and the children could do the same, but it was to an extent. Because they were all separate entities, the demons could not see shielded thoughts and the demon's minds were completely unaccessible to the three future ninja and that also meant that they could not read their siblings shielded thoughts. Also the children could block the demons' connection to their conversations if they decided to and since it was their bond, the demons could not block the children from their conversations.

"**I was bored and I was wondering wondering what you were talking about. Anyway if you haven't noticed, you three came to a stop and the copy-cat fools are glaring at you."** The wolf then waited for the response to her comment.

"**What was that you poor excuse for a canine! How dare you relate those stuck-up bastards to felines." **A deep male voice nearly growled to the others.

"**You sure you want to call them that Shichibi? After all I seem to recall that both of you and Kyuubi were the same way several years ago, though being sealed had calmed you two down some."** The wolf said in an almost playful tone.

"**You were the same as we were you crazy wolf, you were just try to forget that." **Two deep voices said in unison. It seemed that Kyuubi jumped into the conversation when he heard his name called.

The blond children just sighed and ignored the demons' argument. They were so foolish at times that the three had a hard time believing that they were the some of the most feared and powerful demons that world had ever seen. Anyway, Rukubi was right that they had stopped at the main compound in the Uchiha district and that they were being glared at. Apparently there were several well liked and powerful members of their clan that were killed in the attack, and from time to time some of the less obedient Uchiha would capture the children and used them for target practice with either their fire jutsu and genjutsu or shuriken and kunai. This of course would be against the law if the children would know who it was that did it because the ones that usually abducted them would not only use genjutsu to hurt them mentally, but also hide their identity. The children were getting close since they realized that it was two young Uchiha with ANBU and there were currently only four young enough to fit the description and old enough to know about the demons' inside them. This is to say that most of the older Uchiha aren't that well liked by the triplets or their guardians, despite Rin's former teammate and Yugao's current teammate.

As Kurenai knocked on the door, a pretty woman with long black hair and the black eyes of an Uchiha opened the door. "Hello Makoto-san, I'm here to escort Sasuke and Hikari to the academy as you requested." Kurenai said to the older lady.

"Oh Kurenai-san, I was wondering if the Hokage was going to be able to fulfill my request. It seems that all the others are to busy to attend to the youngest of our clan and I was just assigned a mission that I have to leave for in twenty minutes." The Uchiha said as she began to go retrieve children that were mentioned.

She came back with a young boy wearing a black shirt with the Uchiha fan on the back and black shorts being followed by a girl maybe a few months younger wearing a white shirt with the same fan on the back and and blue shorts, both appeared to be the same age as the blonds.

"Well here they are, my son Sasuke and my niece Hikari. Hopefully they won't give you as much trouble as I heard those three tend to give you." Makoto said to the younger woman.

Kurenai just laughed at that. "Trust me, there is nothing like dealing with three hyperactive blonds." She then looked at the blonds she mentioned and saw them pouting, which was so cute that it not only made her laugh more, but got a giggle out of Makoto and Hikari. Sasuke just ignored them.

Not long after that the six began their walk to the Hyuga mansion(or is it a compound?). As they walk each got the same looks as usual. Kurenai received certain looks from the men, the Uchiha got looks of respect, and the Uzumaki got looks of hate. When they arrived at the mansion there were two Hyuga guards at the gate. It was widely known that most Hyuga didn't really care for the Uchiha nor the "demon brats", so it was no surprise that Kurenai was the only one allowed to enter the gate and go to the front door. When the door opened, the head of the Hyuga Clan was standing there with a boy and a girl behind him.

"This is my daughter Hinata, she is to going to become a ninja and bring honor to the clan. The boy is my nephew Neji, he is already attending the academy and is to be an additional escort for Hinata to and from the academy. I am a busy man and will take my leave now. Hinata don't make me regret my decision of having you become a ninja." Hiashi said to the young girl as he walked inside his home. Hinata just lowered her head as she walked with Neji and Kurenai back to the others.

Once they were some distance away Naruto spoke up. "You know what, I don't like that man. He doesn't seem fun at all. So who was the one that shoved a stick up h..." Naruto never finished that statement as Neji slammed him against the wall.

"How dare you insult the leader of the Hyuga clan like that, you realized that there have been those that were killed for doing such things. He deserves respect from a commoner like you. I hope you don't expect me to let that comment go without some form of disciplinary action." Neji said with a cold glare directed to the oldest of the blond. This stopped everyone, who turned to look at what was happening.

Naruto resisted the urge to laugh as he looked unimpressed by the older boy. "Hmm...well I can see that it must be a family thing with the males since Hinata seems different. As for me respecting him..." Naruto sent a glare of his own at the boy holding him against the wall. "There is a small number of people I respect and that man has to do something other than inheriting a position." The blond then slipped out of the shocked boy's grip and joined his sibling as they began to walk to the academy.

Well when they got there, they received exactly what they expected once Kurenai left. Hinata and Hikari were ignored as their cousins were being followed by fan girls, and the blonds received glares from the children that were told to hate the three by their parents and the teachers that hated the demons. When class started, again everything went as expected for the blonds. They were given the hardest questions, had none of their own questions answered, were generally reprimanded for their lack of knowledge or disturbing the class with their "pointless questions", and had already had half of the bullies picking on them. They were at least going to receive an interesting surprise when they arrived home.

Once the three got home they were greeted with one of the rare visits from the Hokage as well as their guardians. "Don't tell me that Neji had you came all the way here to deal with my insult to his clan leader, did he?"

The Sandaime and Kurenai both laughed at Naruto's comment while the others were a little confused. "No Naruto, I am here for another reason that I believe will make you three very happy, but at the same time very sad." The elderly man said. "You see I feel that I should let you three know about your parents and live in their home, which is yours since they left it to you three." The smiles on the blonds' faces was the biggest the six adults have ever seen.

_Well they took that rather well, but I doubt that they will be very excited about the next part. If they are as smart as I think they are then maybe they will understand more than I give them credit for._

That's it for this chapter.

This one took a while because of the oc Hariken. My original plan is to have him with another oc,but as I determined his personality I realized that he would be compatible with Tenten and made me wonder if it should be Hari/Ten since I kinda like the Neji/Ten pairings a little. Well I thought of an idea that should fit in nicely for the story, you will see what I mean later. Besides if he went with Tenten, then there would be more ideas that I'd have to drop than I can think to add at them moment.

With the weights thing, I wanted a plausible explanation for them to have extremely heavy weights instead of just dropping them on them at once and adjust to them over night. In fact I'm still amazed that Lee adjusted to his weights (does anyone know how much they weigh?) in just about a year (I believe he didn't were weights before graduation and being that they were the previous year's rookies, that meant that he adjusted to those weights in less than a year and learned his )

The chain-mesh, I think that's a thinner and lighter version of chain-mail armor knights use to wear. I figured that it would be good to use to protect them to an extent and could be woven into their clothes easily. The leather arm and leg bracers with the chain-mesh would give more flexibility then the solid metal ones or shin-guards, while giving the appearance of regular bracers with antiquate protectiom.

I was planning on reducing my focus on the older ninja soon, starting with Asuka since her primary role was to take care of the three as babies, though I'm sure she'll show up later.


	6. Academy Years, Part 2

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto. Masashi Kishimoto does, so thank him for Naruto.

**A/N:** Okay, here's the problem, I know there are writers that make their chapter lengths be anything from a few hundred words to 15000 per chapter. I personally rather have my chapters be between about 2500 to 4500 per chapter. It's because of that that this chapter, the previous one and the next one were all one chapter and was split up.

"Speaking"

Thinking

"**Inner self/ Demon talking"**

_**Demon thinking **_

**The Burden of Three**

**6. Academy Years, Part 2**

Once the three calmed down the Hokage continued his explination, "That was the good part, but you see as consolation you there will have to live on your own." The happy expressions on the eight other occupants instantly fell. "You see, your parents weren't sure if you three would receive guardians or not, so they told me to have you automatically move into their home after you pass the age for orphans to have the option of living alone, which incidentally is when they start at the academy. Also they wanted you to have the experience. Their parents did the same to them because your maternal grandmother died during childbirth and your paternal grandfather died before he knew his fiancée was pregnant, and they were both active shinobi so they had to leave your parents alone at times lasting from hours to months. I'm sure your that these fine kunoichi and my sister have been able to teach you some of the basics that you will need to take care of yourselves. I'll your all of your possessions taken to your new home by tomorrow, tell you about your parents there, and give you what the asked me to. Sadly they requested that if you were to have any form of guardian, that they would not know where your new home is or your parents identity until you three are genin, but you are allowed to visit and see your guardians away from your home. Also I am allowed to make some alterations in their orders. For three hours after school, you will come back here for training. You are to continue the training that these young ladies have set for you each day and the fifth day will be for whatever these four choose to teach you that day."

Well once he was done the night was filled with sadness and advice for the children. After all, it wasn't that they would never see each other ever again, just not as often. The kunoichi and Asuke would be staying in their current home and keeping each other company. Later that night the three went to sleep for the last time in the only home they knew since their birth.

The next day at the academy went by just as the first did, with the exception of the three blonds being a bit more quiet. After the last class let out, the three walked to the Hokage's tower where they met the Sandaime in his office. There you three are, well lets go see your new home." The hokage said to them.

He led them out of the tower and went down one of the less crowded streets. The soon came to one of the many training areas located inside of Konoha. It was a field that had a thicker and taller forest than the most others in the village. They soon came to a house that was about three times larger than their last home and had a large gate with the same symbol in the center that they all had on their arm. Soon they all entered and was amazed at the interior. Everything was clean and the inside looked larger than the outside. The interior was fully furnished, the kitchen was fully stocked (the Sandaime had it stocked that morning), and all their things were stored in one of three rooms that were right next to each other. The children soon got comfortable as they sat on the sofa with their feet just hanging over the edge, not even close to reaching the floor, and the Hokage sat in a chair across from them.

"Well now children, I believe that I should tell you about your parents. Now first your surname is not truly Uzumaki, it the surname your maternal grandfather decided to adopt since he didn't have one and it was used to protect you from your parents enemies. That means that we used your mother's maiden name since there are only five people now that know it. That blue and black swirl on your right arms is the only thing needed as proof, as the fact that only those directly descended from your father and his mother have those. Being that she had only one child that means that you are the only ones with it other than her. Now for your real name, it is Kazama. I am sure you probably don't remember it, but believe me when I say there are many ninja that know that name. As for me telling you who they were, here..." The elderly Hokage just tossed two pictures to the three.

To say three were shocked as the three looked over the pictures would have been like saying water was wet. In one picture was a man that had a strong resemblance to the Uzum...Kazama males and a woman with white hair that looked like the blond girl. In one picture the woman was laying in bed tired with two blond children laying beside her and a third in the man's hands, it was easy to tell who the babies were. The other picture showed the woman in full ANBU gear with her tiger mask in her hand sometime before her pregnancy and the man wearing the hat of the Hokage, but both were wearing a cloak with flame designs on them. Naruto and his siblings knew who they were looking at, Rin and Kurenai both had some photo albums of their teachers and told them about the ones that trained some of the most dangerous women in Leaf.

Naruto was the first to find his voice, "You mean that the Yondaime and the the commander of all ANBU, two of the strongest ninja that were ever born were our parents?" When the Hokage nodded his head, the older two of the triplets just fainted.

"Well I didn't see that one coming, I figured that Tetsuma would be staying quiet to try to figure out if it was true and Naruto would be yell about it not being fare that we never knew them." the only adult present looked at the boy as if wondering about his calm reaction. "Don't you know? I'm the most rational one of the three of us, though my temper is just as bad as my brothers. I do wonder why you decided to tell us now."

The old man just chuckled a little before answering, "The reason for that is that you may be able to hide it from the others, but you three can't hide all your abilities from me. I know that you three are as smarter as academy graduates, that you have at least lower genin level chakra-control, that you understand a lot more than you let on, that you have the skill to preform jutsu, but have not been taught any yet...and that you have knowledge of your burdens." The last part came out in a more serious tone then everything else the Hokage said.

Hariken paused for a second before grinning. "Well to tell you the truth, we were wondering when someone would notice. The truth of the matter is that all the assassination attempts have made us mature mentally, not to mention that since we have no friends and seldom go leave home, there was nothing to do other than study after Asuka-obaa-chan taught us how to read. That month where we were taken away a year ago is what really pushed us, the hurt us so bad that the demons pulled us into our subconscious to reduce the pain about a week before you found us. They explained who they were, how they were sealed, and why the people hate us, though we wondered why we were chosen as hosts until now. I'm guessing that you know about our mental link, those near-death experiences caused mental barriers we had to break and allow us to communicate mentally. We know no one can hear our conversations, but we didn't know if the connection could be detected. As a result the demons can use it to talk with each other, but they can be pretty nice when they are not in a bad mood. I think that we will tell you why the demons attacked when the others wake-up. So is there anything that you want to talk about while they are recovering."

The older man was shocked. He knew that they were smarter than they let on, that they may have knew about demons, and he was suspicious about the other things, but he just didn't confirm them and here was a boy that was just past seven years old was talking to him with as he thought only adults would. (As in having more maturity and thought behind the words)

The older man looked at the boy and continued their conversation. "Well if that is true, then why do you three still act immature around others?"

The youngest of the three laughed some. "Well to tell you the truth, that's just how we are. Even though we are very mature for our age, we still children and prefer to be immature at times. I think that might be a part of our personality for a long time. Also there are several other reasons. We don't want anyone to know that we are so mentally mature because the villagers might further think that we are the demon with our intelligence. Rin-nee-chan and the others might worry more if they thought we were growing up to fast. Naruto said one of the main reasons best, the villagers would fear a smart and strong demon vessel more than they would a dumb and apparently weak one."

Sarutobi just nodded his head, there was truth in the boy's words. Beside the three was training to be ninja and deception was apart of the ninja life, after all if someone that didn't know who he was were to see the Hokage they would think that he was a weak old man and not the more powerful of the current Kages.

"Well I must say that I had a feeling that you might be hiding a few things, but your maturity has taken me by surprise. Anyway her is the scroll that your parents left you, only one of you three can open it. It is a storage scroll that has things that your parents wrote to you three and some of private possessions that they wanted you three to have. There is a library that is located near the kitchen and surrounded by a barrier that they they said will repel anyone and anything that doesn't share the blood of one of them, but the scroll for that barrier is inside the library so that you can modify it or even dispel it. Inside are all the jutsu that they either learned or created, information on nearly every subject, and a few secrets to your kekkei genkai. I believe that I will leave and let you get familiar with your new home, but since your siblings are still sleeping could you tell me why the demons attacked out village?"

The young blond sighed. "Apparently Kyuubi had a daughter that was about as old as the village and since demons age fare slower than humans she would still be a kit. Kyuubi's mate was killed by another demon when she was still weak from giving birth. Anyway a couple years before the end of the Great War, the Kyuubi had lost contact with her, they had a similar mental link like my siblings and I have. A couple of days before the attack Kyuubi felt his daughter for a moment and in that moment he felt that she was in great pain, but soon the link was completely severed. It seems that before that happened, the link was present enough to tell him that she was alive, but too weak for him to determine her location. That moment of connection was all that he needed to sense that she was her in this village and the sudden end of their link made him think that she was killed, and that caused him to go into the deadly rage that you say on the day we were born. At the time he had two of his fellow Biju aiding him in his search and when he started to head for Konoha they followed him until he explained what happened. They readily agreed to help since it appeared that our village may have killed his daughter, they were found of the kit and were sort of demon grandparents. About an hour before they started to attack, they all smelled the blood of a demon fox and that was all that was needed for to anger Kyuubi beyond reason. The rest you know, but I will say some things that are odd. He said that he sensed her here and smelled her blood, but I it would be odd that no one knew about that. Also was the fact that when we gained our own mental link, Kyuubi said that for some strange reason his mental ability was enhanced enough to know that his daughter is still alive."

The old man nodded his head, what he was told would take a lot of consideration. It seems that the village was set-up and there had to be a cunning person to do it if not for the fact that they would never have found out were it not for the demons. He then walked out of the house and continued to his home.

When the other two woke their little brother explained everything to them, but they were okay with what he told the Sandaime, after all the Hokage is suppose tho know the strength of his shinobi. The three later opened the scroll and were surprised by the things that were in there. They knew that the cloaks were too large for them to currently wear, the necklace would be left at home until they knew they were strong enough not to have them stolen, the hitai-ites they would wear when they became ninja, and the masks they put aside until they would be able to become ANBU. They looked at the photo albums that showed their parents as children and the three were surprised at the strong resemblance they had, they saw an adult behind each of their parents, who must have been their grandparents that the Hokage told them about (They were just as shocked to find out who they were as they were shocked about their parents and they will show up much later), and their parents letters. The letters explained about their family, their blood line, possible abilities, their parents' regrets about not being there, the demons and apologizing about the burden they had to carry, also how the seals allow them access to the demons' seemingly unlimited chakra and the many functions of the seals, asking for forgiveness, and asking the three to make them proud by becoming strong shinobi that will protect the village their parents died for, even if they were treated poorly.

The Hokage sat in his office after finishing writing his report for his private files. _It seems that someone used the demons to attack Konoha, but who? It could have been purposely done to weaken the village or it could have been someone very foolish experimenting with the young demon vixen. Either way I will have to keep a close eye on my and the village's enemies. But now we know why the demons attacked and I doubt there are many that would have done different if in the Biju position._

**A/N:** That's the end of this chapter. Anyway for the demon's reason for the attack, I seen in a few other stories that they had the Kyuubi placed under a strong genjutsu, the it was angered that it's mate and kit's were killed(one when kyuubi was made male and another when it was female).So I made it like "someone messed with daddy's little princess so he and her godparents went to deal with them."

As for the intelligence and skills of the three, I felt that Naruto was always being held back growing up. For one it is stated that he's not that smart. Well I'm sure that it took Iruka a while to warm up to him, but would you be surprised if the teachers tried to hinder his growth as a ninja? They hate the demon and don't want him to get stronger,so they could try ignore his questions when he's confused (making him tired of asking and not wanting to listen), ask him questions on new subjects that hasn't been taught yet, and and grade his papers wrong. He probably stopped listening to the teachers after a couple of years because of what that did, which could be the cause of his lack of intelligence, skill, and habit of not listening to his teachers, understanding them, or cutting class.(after all, I doubt that many will listen to a teacher that they can't understand or won't help them) Besides most children had their parents or family there to teach them what either wasn't taught in the academy or wasn't taught until later and Naruto had no one.

Also Naruto has proven to be quite observant and skilled at times. In the fist episode he was able to evade chunin(I think that was their rank) after defacing the Hokage monument until Iruka caught him, which I would say is pretty good for a genin, let alone an academy student. He was able to learn the jonin level Kage Bunshin no Jutsu in only several hours, a technique only some jonin know and can make more than the average jonin with his own chakra and far more when he uses the demon chakra. In a minute or two he came up with the idea of distraction with Kakashi to trap him from behind and get him with the number advantage during the bell test(I'm still trying to figure-out how the clone were able to stay there so long while fighting each other instead of disappearing after a couple of punches especially since they were a little weaker because of his hunger). Even though he was being foolish at the time, he was able to detect Zabuza a second before he switched with the rabbit. In the Chunin Exams, he was the first to notice Lee's hands and what that meant, create a good plan quickly to distract the rain ninja with his clones(one of my favorite moments), and later learned the Resengan(with his own start-up variation) in one month(I think)when it took the Yondaime three years to create and Jirayia three years to learn.


	7. Academy Years, Part 3

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto. Masashi Kishimoto does, so thank him for Naruto.

**A/N: **This it the third part of that extra long chapter I mentioned. This one is a year later and the children are about eight years old now and been living on their own for a year.

"Speaking"

Thinking

"**Inner self/ Demon talking"**

_**Demon thinking **_

**The Burden of Three**

**7. Academy Years, Part 3**

The next year when by rather quickly for the three. After the move the would spend most of their time either training together or working on their new hobbies. They went to their library and looked over some of the information in there and spent some time studying since most of the instructors didn't help them with the exception of a chunin with a scar across his nose name Iruka. Most of the year in the academy was spent learning about chakra and history, within the last two months they began to learn the first of the three basic jutsu, Bunshin(clone) no Jutsu. It seemed that the triplets could not perform the technique and were looking over their parents' scrolls to find answers. It was there that they learned that their chakra was very high, even for upper genin, because of their heritage and the demons sealed inside them. Also, because of their their high chakra they would need the chakra control that rivaled upper jonin just to reduce the amount of the chakra needed to create at the minimum of twenty clone.

Their training with the Kunoichi Four(as most of the other ninja called them) was progressing nicely. The three went to Kurenai for chakra training exercises when they learned about their problem. She had them fist try levitating a leaf a few inches above one of their hands indoors with no wind disturbance and later outside where wind was a factor within two weeks, then they tried one in each hand and that proved to be more difficult. Once they mastered that they tried it with a leaf over their forehead. At the current point they each could levitate a leaf from one of the three points at the same time easily and had chakra control of that of upper genin.

The three were now wearing fifty pounds (22.7 kg) vests and twenty pounds (9.1 kg) per limb, they were beginning to regret doubling their starting weight and Anko show no pity for them at wearing so much. Yugao was impressed that their taijutsu and weapon training was progressing so much, she was so impressed that she began to have her boyfriend Gekko Hayate begin to train them in the finer points of wielding a sword. Their medical knowledge was steadily improving under Rin's care, they each had basic knowledge in medical skills and jutsu, but Tatsuma had excelled the most like many kunoichi have been known to do.

Their personal training was going well to, when they went to their parents library about learning another way to create bunshins about a week prior. There they found several clone techniques, four that was based on another one on the list and one that even their parents couldn't learn. It took them less than a day to learn the Kage Bunshin (shadow clone) no Jutsu and its compliment of Taju (multiple) Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. It would become one of the most advantageous jutsu that the three would ever learn. They read the notes that said that the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu was a jonin level technique because of the amount of chakra used to sustain it and the Taji Kage Bunshin no Jutsu was a forbidden jutsu because there were few that had enough chakra to preform it without suffering chakra depletion. The notes also explained that anything that a clone learns or sees will transfer to the originals once the clone is dispelled. With that in mind, the three would began to leave each two clones in the library to study while they went to the Academy, they read that creating too many clones can lead to a bit of information overload and cause them to fall unconscious.

They each had hobbies that were kept them busy as well. Naruto showed a fascination with gardening and had plenty of space because of all the land their parents owned. One of their parents must have had the same affinity to gardening because there were already rare flowers and fruit trees located around their home, they just needed someone to properly care for them. Naruto now had everything from decorative flowers and medical plants to healthy apple trees.

Tatsuma found a room full of art supplies and proved that she had great skills with a pencil and paintbrush. She spent a lot of time sketching her their home, Naruto's different gardens, and things around the village. So far she had created seven of her painted masterpieces. The first one was based off one of their few baby pictures with their parents, the picture had their father in basic jonin clothes holding a baby Naruto (she added their whiskers) and her mother in her ANBU clothes without the mask holding herself and Hariken in each arm, that was placed over the fireplace in the living room. The next one was of the three of how the three of them looked now and their parents standing behind them, that was placed on the wall across from the first. Her third one was of the three of them sitting on a sofa with the Kunoichi Four behind it and Asuka and the Hokage were sitting in a chair on either side of them, this was hung in their old home as a gift to their former guardians. Others included her and her brothers standing together, the Hokage and Asuke alone, and the Kunoichi Four standing with their full former teams in one picture(I stated that the three were shown old team pictures before). One of her and her brothers' personal favorite had the three of them with the demons (the size of a large dog) each held standing beside their container. She was a little embarrassed when even the demons complimented her. She also liked to cook, which came in handy to make sure that her and her brothers didn't stuff themselves on ramen all the time.

It seemed that somehow Hariken began to take a liking to weapons. Because of Anko, Hayate, and Yugao, he began to read everything he could on weapon (much like Naruto did to take care of his gardens). He liked them so much that he began to learn how to make weapons from a local weapon-smith since there was forge and tools on their property from when their father made his special kunai. It took some work but the weapon-smith warmed up to the demon host and he was becoming good friends with the man's daughter, Tenten. The man was a widower and took care of his daughter alone, but he worried because he was a semi-active ninja and didn't want to leave her alone. The two children developed a relationship similar to what the blond had with his slightly older sister. They were somewhat rivals, wanting to see who would have the better weapons when they grew up. Several weeks after their meeting, Tenten's father gave Hariken a katana when he was progressing well in his training, a katana that the blond helped make.

Speaking of friends, the three had gained a few over the previous year. Because of their initial meeting, Hinata and Hikari were good friends with Tatsuma. They all became friends with a lazy boy by the name of Nara Shikamaru, a somewhat large boy named Akimichi Choji, and a seemly bossy girl named Yamanaka Ino. It seemed that the Inoichi had felt sorry for them when he had to help repair their minds and convinced his friends to let their children become the Uzumaki's friends. The three usually avoided Sasuke and the older boy Neji, those two seemed to always have a problem.

At the very moment, the three children were all separated, something that was very rare. Naruto had challenged Choji to a ramen eating contest at Ichiraku Ramen Bar, Tatsuma was with Hinata and Hikari in the park, and Hariken was walking Tenten home as they were discussing the sword he was carrying. He had wanted to ask her father if a seal to make it a chakra sword needed to be engraved or placed on with a jutsu. The shop that the man owned was located about seven blocks from the Uchiha sector because they were his best customers and he was one of the best smiths. When they entered the blond boy stopped the girl from calling out for her father.

"This is weird, I smell blood. A lot of blood." The boy had said. It seems that the demons being inside them gave them enhanced animal-like abilities. Their hearing and sense of smell was stronger than a canines, their sight was better than a hawks, they were all as agile as a cat, and had reflexes quicker than most chunin. Of coarse few notes their fang-like teeth and the fact that their eyes were slitted.(yes I know that wolves don't have slitted eyes, but I think a demon can cause any side effects on the children)

Tenten was worried, she was hoping that her father was alright when a kunai was suddenly thrown straight for her. Hariken pushed her out of the way as it stabbed him in his shoulder. He fell to the floor with Tenten looking terrified, she may have been training to be a ninja, but she wasn't ready for life or death situations yet.

"Well what do we have here? I come looking for my mother and cousin to finish what I started and what do I find you may ask. A foolish weapon maker, his pathetic daughter, and one of my favorite targets." An older voice said. The two looked to the direction it came from to see Uchiha Itachi in ANBU uniform coming from the back room holding the broken bloody body of Tenten's father in one hand and a katana still dripping with blood in the other. Hariken knew him because he was suspected to be one of the Uchiha that would always use fire jutsu on the triplets and Tenten had seen him in the shop many times. "As you can see, this old man was no match for me." He then dropped the dying man on the floor and charged Hariken.

The young blond had used the time heal a little when Itachi spoke. He instantly drew his blade and canceled the jutsu on his weights. The swipe of the ANBU had sent the young boy through a window and into an alley. The blond began to defend himself as best he could from his training, because he knew that he had absolutely no chance against Itachi. Without the added weight he was a little faster and much lighter, but that did little to help him against an opponent that he heard was near S-rank from what Hikari told him.

Hariken had no choice but to call for help while he tried to stay alive with them teen that was obviously toying with him. _Naruto! Tetsuma! Get help to Tenten's shop quick! You might need the Hokage. Something is wrong with Itachi, I think he might have killed Tenten's dad and he's trying to kill me now._ That thought instantly stopped the two from what they were doing. Naruto just put his money on the counter when he was midway through with his fifth bowl and left. Tetsuma stopped talking to the others and began to run toward the Hokage's tower, with the Hikari right behind her curious about their friend's actions, while Hinata went home.

Hariken did his best to hold his own until he was stabbed through his stomach. Itachi then removed the blade from Hariken's stomach and picked up the katana that the boy dropped. The young boy caught out blood as he looked up at Itachi eyes and saw the strange from of sharingan that was different from the ones he say before. "Pathetic demon vessel, I can't believe that I wasted my time on you. Well let me introduce you to the the Mangekyo Sharingan, I can use this to make a few seconds seem like three days of physical or mental pain. So for the next three days you will be stabbed continuously." Itacha said as he took the blond boy into the color inverted Tsukuyomi world with him tied to a wall.

As the many men that Itachi created were about to stabbed the boy, each and every one of creations disappeared and Hariken was released. They were both a little confused by that development.

**"You know, I'm really tired of people always saying that the cub is me. I mean he has no fur, nowhere near as powerful as me, and to tell the truth I'm a lot better looking."** A voice said as the two looked around. They soon saw an average sized tiger with a black collar that had a blue swirl on both sides and a tag that said seal on it. The strangest thing about the tiger was that it had seven tails behind it instead of one. **"I mean if I looked like you I could understand the mix-up cub, but how do you look anything like me? Well other than the whiskers of course."**

While Itachi was a little stunned by the appearance of the demon, Hariken decide to answer, "Well how should I know, I been trying to figure out how the village confuses use for you and the others for a couple of years now. By the way, I'm cuter. Anyway are you here to help me out of this mess?"

The tiger laughed at the cute comment before a predatory grin appeared on his muzzle as he licked his lips. **"Oh yes, that's what I'm here for. I don't feel like cleaning up your mind again just because someone wanted to have a little fun. But now that I think about it, it has been a long time since I had fun and this guy seems to be the perfect chew-toy."** As the demon said the last part he began to walk over to his new prey and grow in size.

Now Itachi isn't one to normally fear for his life, but there are few that are crazy enough not to fear one of the most powerful of the Biju. He worked fast and canceled the genjutsu. Once they were back in the real world, Itachi was breathing hard and Hariken was struggling to get up now that his wounds slowly healing. Itachi was weakened from using the Tsukuyomion both his little brother Sasuke and the demon container, but he knew he had to kill the boy since he was able to counter the Tsukuyomi with the help of the demon. Just as he was about to raise the two swords, he sensed the Hokage and several ANBU coming his way.

"It seems that you have lucked out this time, but be warned that you may not be so lucky if we should meet again." With that Itachi disappeared.

Moments later the Hokage, several ANBU, the Kunoichi Four, the older two of the Uzumaki siblings, Makoto, and Hikari arrived to help the hurt Uzumaki. Soon after, it was determined that Hariken would be fine in a day or two because the stomach acid that was released when he was stabbed had caused more damage and slowing his healing. The ANBU began their investigation in the Uchiha district as the others walked into the weapon shop. Inside they found Tenten crying over her father, who was dead according to Rin. The Sandaime was about to tell Tenten that she could move into an apartment if she chose to no long stay in her current home(the shop was in the front and the home was the upstairs and back parts), but he was interrupted by the Uzumaki triplet who nearly begged for him to let the sad girl move in with them. After about fifteen minutes the elderly man allowed it, explaining that it was adult that were not allowed to live with them, but he also said that they would have to share their secret with her sometime after she move in.

Soon the the ANBU returned with a traumatized Sasuke. The captain spoke to the Hokage "According to the boy, Itachi had killed all the other Uchiha. Also that Itachi stated that he was going to be waiting in the weapons shop for his mother and cousin because he knew they both had some errands that included some new kunai and a katana. What we don't know is why he's in this state."

Hariken then coughed a little as he was still recovering. "Well there was something weird about Itachi's eyes. I seen the sharingan several times from...unfortunate incidents and his were different. He called it the Mangekyo Sharingan I believe, whatever it was he took me somewhere with all the colors looking weird. He..umm...used too much chakra before he used it on me and sensed you coming, so it didn't really affect me." He didn't want to say that his demon had helped him since only the Hokage knew about the demons being helpful and the fact that two of their friends were there.

The Uchiha females were very sad when they heard that. Not only was their clan almost completely wiped-out, but it was done by Makoto's oldest son and Hikari's favorite cousin. The Hokage knew this was going to be a problem. _We are still recovering from the loses caused by the demons' attack and the war prior to that, now we have one of our most powerful clans killed by one of the strongest and most promising ninja to every bare their name, except for three. Not only that but one of our best weapon smiths is dead at the hand of that teen and his daughter is moving in with the triplets , where she will most likely learn their biggest secrets. I remember Fugaku once telling me about the Mangekyou Sharingan and that the only way to get it is for an Uchiha to kill his best friend. As I recall the Konoha Military Police and Yugao were telling me that Shisui was killed the other day and he was Itachi's closest friend. Also it seems that Hariken isn't telling us everything, the Shichibi must have helped him but he is unable to say that around the others. This is not going to be taken well by the rest of the village, maybe I can keep the fact that Hariken was part of the reason Itachi ran a secret._ The Sandaime Hokage would have thought more on the subject had his thought not been interrupted by the blond he was just thinking about.

"Hey! I just realized something. That bastard Itachi stole my sword! It's bad enough that I was stabbed by him, but he had the nerve to take the katana that I worked hard to get. If I ever see him a gain I'll teach him a lesson about taking things that doesn't belong to him!" It seemed that Hariken's outburst was just what was needed to relax everyone just a little bit with the grim situation.

_I don't know if they purposely do it, but those three have a unique way of changing most situations. It may not have caused anyone to laugh, but it did relax everyone's stress a little._ The Hokage thought as he was thinking of what to do next.

**A/N:** Well that's it. This is going nicely, but still a little slow. Hopefully the next chapter will be the last of the academy years. I don't remember who came up with the idea of a vessel to a powerful demon would have a bit of resistance to the Tsukuyomi since it's mental, but I liked it. Genjutsu still works on them, just that ones similar to the Tsukuyomi will backfire if used on any vessel of a starting with the five tail on up since a vessel has two conscious minds, meaning that there are only five that it can't work on.

The training is going well to. I will say this now, I plan on having them master most of their parent's jutsu by the time they are genin, after all a less that intelligent Naruto did it pretty quickly, so three of them working with all the notes shouldn't take that long. I will also improve their chakra control a lot too. The part about their chakra amounts I believe is accurate. I think that in Naruto's younger academy years their chakra was upper genin/lower chunin, that by graduation and the wave country arc that he was mid/upper chunin in chakra since kage bunshin was a jonin skill, and he probably has the highest chakra of anyone short of S-rank or Kage level. But you know what they say, it doesn't matter if you have a huge amount if you can't use it properly.

As for Tenten, I heard that she acted kind of sisterly to Naruto in one of the filler episodes. Personally I liked the hobbies that I gave them. I wanted to give Hariken the a blacksmith ability and make weapons, as well as be a weapon's master. That is where he connects with Tenten and they will make a good team when together, but no couple, if you haven't guessed I will have him with Hikari. You will have to wait to see who Tatsuma will be with. As for her hobby, I'll admit that Zidra's _My Family _was the one that inspired that idea when I was thinking about a skill to give the sister. I been read the story and remembered the artist idea, so I figured that might be a good idea.


	8. Academy Years, Part 4

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto. Masashi Kishimoto does, so thank him for Naruto.

**A/N: **I think that the last three chapters were ok, but I believe that they didn't go as well as I wanted. I said that they were one chapter that I split, but I wanted to split the chapter where Part two ended and extend Part three to cover what is in this chapter. I had a bit of writer's block at the end of the last chapter and I was impatient, so I posted what I had after I split the chapter. I'll try to do better and maybe see if I can have make my chapters a little longer, but I will try to shorten my paragraphs to make it easier to read. Since I made this chapter longer than usual it will also cover just before the graduation exam and be the last of the academy years.

For that reviewer that asked, I stated in the first chapter that a Naru/Hina paring could be expected. Sorry that you're not a fan of that, but I am. Some info on that will appear in the next chapter or the one after that.

"Speaking"

_Thinking _

"**Inner self/ Demon talking"**

_**Demon thinking **_

**The Burden of Three**

**8. Academy Years, Part 4**

It would go down in history that one specific day would be known as the day of the Uchiha Massacre. It is known that Uchiha Itachi had, for reasons unknown, decided to murder the entire Uchiha Clan. He had apparently planned to murder everyone in his clan with the exception of his younger brother, Uchiha Sasuke. He had place a strong genjutsu known as the Tsukuyomion and caused Sasuke to see his older brother murder everyone in their clan for three days, though to the outside world it was just a few seconds, and told his little brother that he was going to also kill their mother and cousin when he found them. Itachi managed to kill all but three of the Uchiha, Sasuke included, and the owner of a weapon shop near the Uchiha District. It seems that his mother was returning from a mission and stated before she left on her mission that she was going to that specific shop before returning home on the day of the Massacre.

Uchiha Makoto had just given the Sandaime Hokage her report and was preparing to leave when the four kunoichi she knew helped raise the Uzumaki triplet had entered the office. She was always a kindhearted person and felt sorry that the three had to deal with so much hate when they did nothing more than be born on the day of tragedy, so she occasionally talked to one or two of the four women so that she could know more about them and the triplets. They were talking about the children when two of the three suddenly appeared in the room yelling about their younger brother sending them to get help because Itachi was attacking him.

Everyone in the room were confused, but the four young women had stopped many assassination attempts made on the three and were heading out of the door as soon as the heard the children's words. The Hokage knew of Itachi's strength and decided to personally go to investigate the situation. He had two ANBU teams accompany him, Yugao's remaining ANBU team members, who arrived with her and were giving their report while she talked to the others, and another team that like the blonds. Makoto went after them to find out if what the children said about her son was true and the two children were right behind them since it was their brother that was being attacked. Lastly, Uchiha Hikari was behind the two blonds, she had been following Tetsuma and heard what they said. She wanted to see if it was true just like her aunt.

The group had arrived just after Itachi had left and they were unable to detect where he had disappeared to, so they were unable to follow him. They did find an injured Hariken and he informed them that he would have been dead before he could even call for help if Itachi had not decided to toy with him. The ANBU had discovered the murdered Uchiha and and found a crying Sasuke screaming "He killed them. He killed all of them." over and over again, but they were able to get some other information from the traumatized boy.

The ANBU had just arrived back with Sasuke to inform the Hokage of what they discovered when the other group had found the dead shop owner and Tenten crying over her father's body(I would have given him a name, but I never planned for him to be around too long). Once the ANBU told the group about what they discovered and the the scene turned more depressing. Several hours after that, the Hokage had the ninja of Konohagakure no Sato give the murdered Uchiha a proper funeral. It was quick, but the elderly man felt that it had to be done as quick as possible. He also had the three remaining Uchiha stay in a hotel for a couple of days as he located a new place for them to live since it would probably be many years before any of them would want to live in their former home. He had found a home that could easily house the three near the Hyuga mansion. Usually the Hyuga would have objected to having any Uchiha so close, but it was a special case and Hyuga decided not to object as long as the three Uchiha did not disturb or interfere in their affairs.

The daughter of the murdered weapon maker had moved into the Uzumaki, or rather Kazama, home the day after her father's death. She had placed all her possessions,the weapons that her father had made, and the tools that her father used to make the weapons inside of some summon scrolls to make moving easier. She was surprised by the location of her friends home, but more so by the size of their house. When she walked inside she was very impressed, but the first thing she saw was a painting that had a familiar looking man that also had resemblance the boys that she knew and a woman that looked like their sister, only she had white hair. The man was holding a blond baby wrapped in a blue blanket and the woman held one in each arm, one wrapped in a blue blanket as well and one in a pink blanket.

"It looks nice, don't you agree?" Asked a familiar voice behind the brown haired girl. She turned around to see Naruto. "I think this is one of Tatsuma's best ones and probably the most accurate involving our parents. They died in the demon attack and a couple hours after we were born. The Hokage gave use several pictures that he took right after our birth, he was close to our grandparents and that made him close to our parents. I'm the one that our father is holding, Tatsuma is the one mother has wrapped in pink, and Hariken is the one she has in blue."

She was impressed that his sister was able to make such a good painting just from a picture that obviously had their parents looking a little different than the painting depicted, since the mother was in an ANBU uniform with her mask nowhere insight. Personally she didn't know the boy or his sister that well, except from what Hariken had told her when they were learning from her father. In all honesty she knew the youngest of the three best because of their love of weapons. She knew their sister a little because they would talk when the younger girl came looking for her brother. All she really knew was that they were good kids that were hated for some reason and they would be her new family.

"Umm..yeah it's very nice, looks like a professional did it. So those are your parents?" The blond nodded. "I don't know where, but I know that I seen them some where before. I have a feeling that I know about them for and can't exactly remembered what it is. Can you tell me or is it some kind of secret? I remember your brother never really talked about them."

Naruto closed his eyes and seemed to be thinking about her question. "I guess it's not a problem. We were planning on telling you a few things since you will be living here with us and I guess this can be the first. Well what I'm about to tell you are several S-Class secrets that the Hokage has asked us not to revel to anyone outside of this house unless he said so. Right now he, my siblings and I are the only ones that know about most of them. Do you think that you can keep our secrets?" After getting a nod from the older girl he continued, "Our parents' names are Kazama Arashi and Mina, but very few remember those names. I believe that you may have known them as the Konoha's Yellow Flash and Flaming Tigress." Naruto watch as the girl appeared to be remembering those names and when she did her eyes widened.

"You mean to tell me that the strongest Hokage we ever had and one of the strongest kunoichi ever were your parents?" She just got a nod from the boy. "But I don't remember ever hearing about them getting married or having children."

Naruto just smiled at her statement. "That's the reason that they are S-Class secrets. Only my parent's students, their parents, and the Hokage know about their marriage. As for the three of us, the Hokage said that our grandparents thought our parents were just having one child and it died during the attack with mom and dad, the medic-nin that knew about them having children were killed in the demon attack, and our parents' students were never told about mom being pregnant, so the Hokage is the only other one that knows about us."

Tenten just stood there with her mouth moving like a fish trying to think of something to say. After all, it's not everyday that you find out that your best friend and his siblings are the children of one of your idols and the one of the greatest heroes of Leaf, she always wanted to be a strong kunoichi and looked up to strong kunoichi like Tsunade and Mina. After the initial shock wore off, the four children all decided to talk together. It surprised Tenten to learn that the triplets were not only the children one of her idols, but they were partially trained by the group know as the Kunoichi Four and on good terms with nearly all of the kunoichi in the village, the three were curious of how they did that too.

After several weeks the young girl began to adjust to her friends' home, but there was always something odd going on. At times it seemed that the three were silent then they would begin talking as if they been started a conversation, then there were times that she could feel something like a strong energy nearby when the others were training, and there was the fact that the three would seem to tired at times from simple tasks. After they avoided the subject for about a month, the three decided to share their other secrets. The village's hate for them, their parents sealing the demons because they were unable to kill them, them being the vessels that hold the demons, a couple of their training secrets (but kept some details hidden) and abilities that the Hokage knew about, and the laws the Hokage created concerning them.

Well once they told her that, they expecting her to yell at them and run away screaming about the them being evil. Instead she yelled at them about not trusting her. After that she went to her room and didn't come out until the next day, she decided to calm herself before she said something she might regret later. Well after that the four became closer and the triplets began to let Tenten train a little with them or watch their training. Many of the things they were learning or doing was to advanced for her, so she stuck with the more basic or reduced forms of training when compared to the Uzumaki's.

The three blonds were able to make Tenten her own weights from their parents notes, but hers were smaller and less obvious. It seemed that not only did Hariken learn to make weapons, but he learned other forms of metal work to see what else he could make. He was able to make the weighs like a set of bracelets and anklets what worked very similar to the bracers they wore, he even decided to make a set for Tatsuma since she liked them so much. Tenten's weights were less than theirs because she didn't adjust as easily as the triplets could and would train with her weapons more than anything else. Soon the future weapons mistress was invited to train with the three in the afternoon with the kunoichi that helped raised them and she was extremely happy have more female influences in her ninja training other than her idols. She did manage to keep her new family's secrets from the four older women just like she was asked.

**----------------------------------------------------**

Tenten seemed to take on the role of a slightly older sister to the three and over the next three years the children grew, they all had gained some new skills. Hariken had been studying how to make seals so that he could customize his weapons with special features, so far he just made kunai and shuriken. He was planning on making each of them a personalized weapon by the time they graduate. Tatsuma had been spending a lot of time learning new how to engrave things, she was now able to engrave in stone and metal almost as easily as she could put a pencil to paper. Naruto had been researching jutsu in their library so that he could create some. As of this point they have learn all their parents jutsu, not really that hard to do when you are very intelligent and can create hundreds of clones to practice the jutsu for three years.

Even though she didn't advance nearly as fast as her younger siblings(They basically unofficially adopted her), Tenten advanced fairly well. She didn't have the chakra capacity to preform any of the upper level skills that the blonds did, but that didn't stop her from learning the lower levels and how to use chakra strings. She had graduated the previous week and had her skills evaluated by her jonin instructor. Her ninjutsu were mid to upper genin, genjutsu was lower genin(though Kurenai made sure she could tell when she's under genjutsu and dispel up to mid chunin level), tiajutsu was upper genin/lower chunin thanks to her teachers and siblings, her skills with projectile weapons was nearly jonin, and her ability in armed combat could rival a chunin. The young girl may not be the best of her class, but she was among them and could probably will make chunin after she gained a year or two of experience.

"So Tenten, how does it feel to be a genin?" The female Uzumaki asked her when she got home. The younger three had arrived home from the academy an hour before Tenten.

"Well it's not bad, my junin sensai is a little...eccentric, but he's a nice guy. His name is Maito Gai and he said that he's a taijutsu specialist, so maybe by the time you three become genin I'll be able to beat one of you in an all taijutsu match." She smirked at the end of her statement.

The others laughed a little, but Naruto answered her, "No offense Tenten, but there's little chance of that. Hariken and Tatsuma have been creating a unique taijutsu style based on want the others taught us and what was in our parents' library. So maybe we will be better by then. We can always try that out in the future if you want."

Tenten laughed a little. She didn't want to say it out-loud, but the three younger children were stronger than her and will probably always be stronger. Though she did plan on making that strength gap as small as possible.

"That may be true, but I have to warn you to be careful about my team. One person on my team is named Rock Lee. He said that he's unable to do ninjutsu or genjutsu and plans to be a great ninja using only taijutsu. Well I'd call it an impossible dream if it wasn't for the fact that I said that our sensai is a taijutsu specialist and I noticed that he's already beginning to take a strong interest in Lee's training. That means that you three may have some strong competition when you become genin. The other one is the rookie of the year, Hyuga Neji." The three listening just stared at the girl. "Did I say something wrong?" Hariken decided to tell her about their first day at the academy and she understood. "So that's why he looked at me strangely when I mentioned that I was living with you three. I guess he still remembers you."

Naruto sighed, "Just great, now I have a deal with a second rookie of the year with a bad attitude." Tenten looked at him as if asking for an explanation. "Well you see, Sasuke and me don't really get along, and it was said that he's most likely to be our class rookie of the year."

Hariken frowned at the statement. "That's true, but it's not your fault. Sasuke developed some kind of complex of killing hi brother and protecting his remaining family for some reason after the Uchiha Massacre. He didn't like the fact that I fought Itachi while he was crying over his father's body. I told him that his brother was just toying with me and I would have been dead in a second if he was serious, but the stubborn fool didn't listen to me. Sasuke resents us a little since Naruto tried to help me and we appear to have the kind of brotherly relationship he was suppose to have."

Tatsuma began to laugh a little. "That's not the only reason he doesn't like you, Hariken. From what I hear, he overheard you saying Hikari was cute and he said something along the lines of 'there is noway that he was letting some no talent dead-last loser have a crush on his cousin.'" Once she finished talking, both her and Tenten giggled at the blush appearing on Hariken's face, though he could have also been red with anger from the insult.

Well after a small argument about not having a crush and other things, the four went to their afternoon training. They soon found out that that would be the last week of their training because the four kunoichi were all being promoted. Kurenai was going to be an active jonin until the next year where she will be assigned a team from the new graduates, Rin was going to be a jonin and placed in command of the medic-nin because she was the most experienced medic-nin in the village, Yugao was being promoted ANBU Captain, and Anko was being promoted to Tokubetsu Jonin and specialize in interrogation with Ibaki. So the three would soon be training alone again since their everyone was going to have more responsibilities and less time, also Tenten would be away with team training and missions.

**----------------------------------------**

Several months later, the three were still performing the poorly in the academy and they were ranked at the bottom of the class. In all honesty, the three had stopped trying unless Iruka was was teaching the class. In their classes there were a total of five teachers, three that would teach everyone and two that would teach all the girl. They thought that Iruka was a good teacher because he was actually nice to them and tried to help them, but the others we completely unfair. When it was time for a test the teachers would usually give the three the wrong test or change the answers the triplets marked when they graded the tests. They were constantly picked to answer questions that they shouldn't know and three had to answer wrong or they might reveal that they are more intelligent than they appear. Personal Tatsuma hated the special kunoichi classes, saying that most of the stuff they were taught was either to pertained to flower arranging or things they would probably need to know if they were going to pose as wives or women of other countries in the future.

They didn't really care about the academy anymore, all they wanted to do was graduate so that they could get away from these that tried to hinder progress, besides they learned more information on their own in their library. Of course they couldn't let anyone get away with trying to cause them problems. It seems that the three were well know for their pranks in the village and gave many a fear of being the next target instead of worrying about the demons that was sealed inside them, demons that found many of the pranks funny.

Some of their pranks were directed toward those that tried to overcharge them in the market. They once collected a dozen stray cats and let them loose in a seafood store that kicked Naruto after selling him some spoiled fish. They once set-off a paint bomb in a clothing store that refused to even let them in. Another time they convinced Aburame Shino to use his ability to communicate with insects to ask some termites to eat holes in the roofs of several homes in exchange for several rare insects that liked Naruto's garden, once it was done it was later discovered that there was a bad thunderstorm that night with plenty of heavy rain.

Their favorite prank involved the men's bath in the local hot springs, a large supply poison ivy, and a chunin level illusion. That particular hot springs was a favorite to most of the male ninja that hated the three and they decided to do a little payback, but also decided to be nice to the women since the majority of the kunoichi that went there liked the blonds. The day of the last prank was the day of both the biggest laugh and headache for the Hokage because of the what happened to the men, though he did feel some pity, and the fact that there were at least two dozen men that he had to take off active duty until they cured their...problem.

The teachers that wronged them had to deal with their alarm clocks being stuffed with special explosive noted that made more noise than damage, their soap being replaced with something made them smell like a skunk, dye in their shampoo that made their hair a brighter shade of pink than a certain Haruno student, and their chunin uniforms being replaced with copies of the green spandex that a certain jonin wears. All that happened to the them and the instructors never learned that it's not wise to anger an Uzumaki.

The three had taken up a unique style of dressing as well. Naruto and Hariken started to wear orange and blue jumpsuits with all his bracers still on and a netted shirt underneath the jacket, the jacket had their usually blue swirl on the back.(basically the only differences from the normal one is the swirl and bracers) Tatsuma decide to dress similar to her brothers, but decided to wear the jacket open with a black shirt on under it. Naruto and Hariken was almost identical, but Hariken had one more whisker mark on each cheek and his hair were longer. Tatsuma decided to put her hair in a set of pigtails, though Tenten suggest she try to bun her hair.

They each had a set of goggles as well. The goggles had a couple of special features and different additional uses. They could be used as both binoculars and for underwater uses, then thanks to some of their parents jutsu the goggles could be used to see in the dark and see though genjutsu as easily as a Dōjutsu.(that to make them have that ability for now) They each had their goggles match the color of their weapons to make the easy to distinguish. The other uses they had for them was that Naruto and Hariken used theirs to keep their hair out of their eyes, Hariken also used his to to protect his eyes when making weapons, and Tatsuma used hers to protect her eyes from paint, but wore it around her neck when not in use.

The training they did was very useful. With months of uninterrupted practice they were able to completely master the jutsu their parents made and have a number of elemental jutsu. They discovered that because of their mother's kekkei genkai they also inherited chakra elements. It seems that their mother's was fire and lightning while their father's was earth and wind, but they also inherited their grandmother's chakra element of water and made their chakra be aligned to all five basic elements. It was because of that that the five were able to learn and control certain elemental jutsu faster than they should have. Part of the training they made for themselves was to try to find new ways of using their chakra to enhance their abilities, though they were mostly reduce to just using a single element at a time since they had not discovered a way to perform jutsu without a kekkei genkai specifically for combining elements.

Hariken had also finally been able to make the seals for his weapons to make them more unique or chakra enhanced. His first project was to make a weapon for each of them. He mad himself and Naruto a katana each with their respective demon's chakra embedded in the swords. He then made a set of daggers for his sister since she preferred lighter weight and closer ranged weapons, not so mention Hayate had given her sword training in shorter weapons because she had some difficulty wielding a sword as easily as her brothers. Each dagger had her demon's chakra embedded like her brothers' swords. The main way to distinguish the swords was that the hilt of Naruto's katana was wrapped with a reddish-orange cloth and Hariken's was wrapped with a dark blue one, also they each had a sheath that was painted in the same colors. Tatsuma was given a set of silver sheaths to match the the hilts of her daggers.

Tatsuma did place some engravings on the weapons with Hariken's permission and had added more of a personal touch to the weapons. Naruto's sword had a image that looked like the Kyuubi landing from a jump with it's nine tails waving behind him on both sides of the blade and the swirl pattern that was a mark of their clan behind him. Hariken's was much the same, except it had Shichibi crouching down as if preparing to pounce with his seven tails swaying in front of the symbol. Final her own daggers had Rokubi with her six tails spread out she bared her fangs and the swirl was just above her tails.

It was said that the three had embedded some of the demons' chakra inside of their weapons, that would mean that they had some access and control to the demonic chakra. In the last few years they managed to gain control over some of the chakra and had some unique alternations to their bodies. Though how much they could control, their strength level, and their abilities were secrets that only the three knew. Also, the weapons were virtually unbreakable because of the demon chakra and the metal used. The truth was that the only thing that could cause the weapons to break was a weapon that was made from a similar process.

Hariken also had to put additional seal on their private weapons, such as rejecting anyone that handles or try to wield the weapons it without their permission and teleporting like a summoning to the nearest person with permission. Another seal was a control and suppression seal over the chakra seal, after all if the demon's chakra over powered their sense while training when he needed to make sure that their swords(and daggers) didn't do the same to them or anyone they let use them. When that was done he began to go over possible weapon designs for certain people as gifts.

With Hariken's weapon and seal making skills he had managed to create new kunai and shuriken. They were the same as any that were made by other blade-smiths, but what was unique about his was that he placed a seal on the weapons that automatically caused the projectiles to teleport to their their designated holster or pouch. That meant that they would never have to worry about running out, losing, or retrieving their throwing weapons. Tenten in particular liked that idea and had Kariken place the seal one every one of her weapons. Another of his seal was placed on shuriken only and caused them to explode on impact when a little chakra was channeled in to them prior to throwing. He even managed to make a few of his father's special kunai for him and his siblings.

Naruto had developed several jutsu that he shared with his siblings, but he was the best because he had the most chakra. They mastered all the chakra exercises that they practiced. They levitated leaves and rocks, walked up trees, walking on water, walking up the wall of a waterfall(the wet rock wall behind it with the water forcing them down), and the hardest for them of walking up the water of the waterfall. Their control not only dramatically improved, but their already impressive chakra reserves at least doubled and they practiced all the control methods with their added weights, though they had to release them whenever they moved to the deeper water and lost footing so they could swim at times.

It seems that training with their weights in different ways had unique effects on the three since they shifted some of the weight when they switched to better fitting vests over the years until they stopped using them. Tatsuma had shifted more of her weights to her ankles so that she used more energy in her legs and she was without a doubt the fastest of the three, so she had about one-hundred pounds (45.4kg)on each leg and fifty pounds(22.7kg) on each arms. Hariken had shifted more to his wrists and that made him the strongest, ninety pounds on each arm (40.8kg)and seventy pound on each leg (31.8kg). Naruto had kept his balanced, that made him slightly faster than his brother while being stronger than his sister with seventy-five pounds (34kg)on each limb, but that wasn't his specialty. Naruto had the most chakra than the others so he focused on that and his jutsu than his physique, though he was still above average genin (maybe chunin too)in that area as well.

Because the three were still in the academy they decided to leave their weapons at home, but they were wondering if they would ever become genin with how most of the teachers were against them. Right now the three had a couple of days before the exam and they were wondering what will they have to do. Naruto had been telling his sibling that they should do something to really be remembered since they wouldn't have the time once they graduate, but the other two were skeptical as they were sitting on the roof of the school.

"Come on guys, we need to do something big to really grab everyone's attention. Something like, I don't know, paint graffiti on the faces of Hokage Mountain(or is it called Monument?)."

The other two paused and looked at him for a second. "Naruto, I paint art, not graffiti." Was his sister's response.

His brother said, "If you think I'm insulting dad and the old man by doing that then you really don't know me as well as I thought."

Naruto held up his hands in defense. "Okay, you win. We won't do that, but we have to do something."

Tatsuma was looking out the window at the Hokages' faces when she got an idea and explained it to her brothers. It seems that Naruto had a good idea, but as usual turned it into a prank. After she finished explaining her plan, the three shared a smile. They may not be pulling a prank, but it was big and would definitely get them noticed. That night they were able to sneak out of the house with their supplies without waking Tenten and began to get to work in the middle of the night.

The next morning the three blonds were glad that they had decided to rest instead of train the previous afternoon and they were very grateful to their training. The three were able to finish in a couple hours because of the ability to see in the dark that their goggles gave them, their skills with shadow clones, and their chakra control exercises. As soon as anyone stepped outside of their home they would see the "masterpiece" of the Uzumaki's.

Once everyone woke up and looked to the Hokage's Mountain, they were all surprised. They didn't know whether to be angry or impressed by what was done to the images of the great leaders of Hidden Leaf. Those that knew of Tatsuma's artistic ability instantly recognized her work and had a feeling that her brothers helped. The Sandaime Hokage was both impressed and amused by the work of the triplets. He also had to regrettably send out two ANBU squads, five jonin, and ten chunin to search for the three to give them punishment for what they did, though he secretly hoped to convince the council to let some of their work stay.

What the three had done was paint all the Hokage's faces to a more flesh color that matched each one's real complexion, then painted the hair and eye of the four in the proper way (His hair was done in the same color it looked when he was younger), and even the hitai-ites of the Shodai and Nidaime(I think his is a samurai style headband) were colored properly. That wasn't all that was done, it seems that the three wanted to get their thoughts out. Under the Shodai Hokage's face was the words "The First, but not the best", under the Nidaime Hokage's face was "The Second was good, but there were better", under the Sandaime Hokage's face said "Kind man and one of the best, but there is still one better", and under the Yondaime Hokage's face was "The best of the four and one of the greatest heroes." The part that particularly amused the old man was what came next. Right next to the Yondaime's head were the words "Whoever the old man gets to replace him before I'm old enough", and that was soon followed by "This place reserved for Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage." The elderly man had to let a chuckle pass his lips, he would have to have the young blonds clean off the words, but maybe he could have the paint on the faces treated to be weather resistant.

Several hours later the Hokage was starting to wonder if he had underestimated the skills of the triplets since it appeared that the teams had yet to return with the blonds. As he looked outside at the faces on the mountain again he saw water pouring down the side of the mountain and over all the painted areas. Soon all the words were washed away, but the paint on the faces remained.

"You like that jutsu? It was in our parents library, I believe it was called Suiton: Daibakufu no Jutsu (Water Release: Great Waterfall Technique). When you have the right talent and skills you can make Kage Bunshins perform strong techniques even from this distance. We just needed to make one each and send them to wash the words away, well we made a few more to give a good chase to those guys you sent after us." The Hokage heard Naruto's voice say as he turned to see the three blonds in question sitting in chairs in front of his desk, he was glad that he sensed them when they entered or they would have really surprised him. "As for the paint, well the words you can see wash away with water and the faces need to have a special remover we made for it to wash away.

Sarutobi laughed again as the blond spoke. _Very interesting, not only did they elude the ninja I sent after them, but also made it so they could easily undo their work if they needed to in a relatively quick method. They also manage to do an A-rank jutsu in conjunction with a B-rank, possibly another A-rank if they used the Taju Kage Bunshin, without appearing fatigued. I have to say that they are proving to be very interesting and will be great ninja when they are older, but first they need to pass the graduation exam._

Well that's it for now

The next chapter will be the graduation exam, though there will be a few different things. Things are a little slow since I started working on a third story before I forgot the idea. The next chapter will take a little while since I have to think of how much I want to cover, how long it will be, and I want to make another chapter for my FF7 story.

I know that I'm making them seem really strong or skilled for their age, but it is all possible. It has been said that using the Kage Bunshins to study would allow years of practice in months or maybe weeks, and I had them know it for a couple years now. I have a feeling that giving Naruto all chakra elements isn't that new, but I felt that it would help explain the three learning and creating new jutsu so fast along with the clones.

For Tenten I increased her skills, I thought that she and Hinata were two of the strongest girls fighting and that those two probably would have made chunin soon if they had a little more training and experience.

I forgot to mention this, but they basically have a large inheritance from their parents and are living of that. As well as most of the supplies they had are already their from their parents' last project years ago. I also decided to let them have the basic orange clothes in this chapter, but it will change later. I think that some might like my idea. Also this is one of the few times that they will all wear the same thing, which is because I didn't want to put too much thought into making different styles based off Naruto's original jumpsuit when I plan on changing it in a chapter or two. I want them to wear the same style but in different colors to show that they are the same, yet individuals.

As for their weights, if they kept up the weight changes that I said they all would have been at 340 lbs (154.2kg) and 370 lbs(167.8kg) when they increase them after graduation, but I made some changes and felt that would be enough since I heard Lee wears 300 lbs (136.1kg)per leg and I said they mastered their parents' jutsu, including the Hiraishin no Jutsu. So Naruto and Tatsuma has 300 lbs in total and Hariken has 320lbs(145.1kg) on. Tatsuma being the fastest of the three, Hariken is the strongest (though working the forge for weapons could have helped too), and Naruto is the most balanced.

The next chapter should begin with the Henge test and I'm trying to see how I'll fit the Oiroke no Jutsu (sexy jutsu) in there and justify it's creation, because after all you have to admit with four much older somewhat adopted sisters, one slightly older adopted sister, and a blood sister they should hate perverts more than anyone(which they generally do) and would fear their sisters' wrath if they became perverts. (which is also true)

Until next time.


	9. Graduation and Trouble

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto. Masashi Kishimoto does, so thank him for Naruto.

**A/N:** Here's the new chapter, I think now that I'm here, there will be a little more comedy. I think that some might enjoy the first few paragraphs.

**Dragon Man 180**-I read your sorry before and I'll admit that I forgot you did that. In all honesty it all came from various ideas that popped in my head. The the words was just a random idea, but the words next to the Fourth's head came from a rational view point. 1. They did it at night, so there was no proof that it was them; 2. I was going to put 'The Uzumaki's were here', but that seemed to plain and a bit of a cliche; 3. I remembered the fact that Naruto always talk about being the next Hokage and the next Hokage's face would go up there one day, so he reserved his spot as a way to say who did it and state his dream; 4. Having it a couple spaces over tells that he's smart enough to know that there will most likely be a Fifth Hokage before him since the Third is old, so he plans on having the sixth position, so future instead of next.

**DreadCraft-**I agree with you on several points. With your first point I thought of something similar with the three, the reason for my comment about their clothes in the last chapter, "I want them to wear the same style but in different colors to show that they are the same, yet individuals," but that probably strengthened the idea that they are alike. Your second point about the word processor, sometimes there are things that it miss and I try to correct that myself (Sometimes reading over every word three time), but things still slip. Hopefully the meaning is understood. The power thing, yeah I agree, that is one of my biggest problems. I estimate them at high chunin/low jonin, but several of the other genin will be stronger as well as meeting other strong opponents sooner.

Other reviewers, thanks for the compliments, I will try my best to make this story as good as I can.

"Speaking"

_Thinking _

"**Inner self/ Demon talking"**

_**Demon thinking **_

**The Burden of Three**

**9.Graduation and Trouble**

With the words washed off the monument, the three children decided it was time to go to class. Already knowing what was going to be said to them, so they took their time and had a nice conversation.

"Naruto, Hariken, when are you two going to ask Hinata and Hikari out? They are my best friends and I can think of no one better for them other than you two, but if you take forever someone else might get them." Tatsuma said to her brothers as the walked down a nearly deserted street.

Naruto sighed, "Neither of us are sure. I like Hinata and he likes Hikari, but all being with them now would do is make them targets for the villagers hate." He looked to his younger brother for support. It may have been odd for either of them to talk about feelings so freely since they spent a lot of time denying it, but they stopped that about a month prior since they hated keeping some secrets from each other.

"Not to mention that those same villagers would probably say something like 'Those demon brats managed not only to gain control of the heiress of our strongest clan, but also get the one of the last Uchiha too.' That's one headache we all can do without for now," Hariken sadly said.

Their sister nodded her head knowingly, "Then you add the fact that their cousins really don't like you two. I still don't see how you got Neji to dislike you so much Naruto, we only seen him a couple of times where you even talked to him and yet he's as cold to you as Sasuke is to Hariken." Naruto was about to answer her when their younger brother interrupted him.

"It's a gift, the ability to get on the bad side of anyone without trying hard," the youngest blond said while rubbing his knuckles against his jacket with a grin on his face. "Seriously, Neji I think is still upset about that comment Naruto said when we first met him. He insulted their clan head and that could be taken as an offense against the entire clan, also I think he has some feelings for Tenten and he heard Naruto call her Ten-chan that time we ran into them when we saw them walking from a team meeting. We also know you just called her that to mess with Neji." The last part was said with a grin.

The other two laughed at the thought. They all knew that Tenten had a crush on Neji, but they decided not to mess with her about it. That of course didn't stop them from joking about it behind her back. It wasn't anything really bad said about her, instead they talked about how cold Neji seemed and ignorant of the brown haired girl's feelings or his own.

"Well that's possible, but what about you, little brother? As I recall you have to get through an almost unemotional and overprotective cousin whenever you do try to become the boyfriend a certain young female Uchiha." Tatsuma pointed out.

The younger brother just shrugged, "Well it's a challenge and you know that I find challenges fun. She would be worth the trouble if she likes me back though. Speaking of which, does she like me sis?"

Tatsuma just pretended that she didn't hear her and they continued to the academy with Hariken angry that his question was ignored. When they opened the door they were greeted by the frown of Iruka and the passive face of Mizuki seated at the teachers' desk.

"Hey Iruka-sensai, you look upset. I hope none of the others students been too much trouble for you without us here to distract them from your boring lectures." Naruto said with the now trademark Uzumaki grin(can't be a fox grin since they all don't have fox demons). If anything Iruka seemed to get angrier. The three counted down mentally in unison, _...four, three, two, one..._

"Naruto, Tatsuma, Hariken you are all over an hour late for class! I would like an explanation now!" The irritated man almost yelled out.

The three blonds all stood in a thinking position with a hand to their chin and their eyes closed. "Hmm...helped an elderly lady with her groceries?" Naruto asked his siblings.

"No, we helped Asuka-obaa-chan with her groceries yesterday. What about delivering kunai to Anko-nee-chan?" Hariken asked.

"Nope, we gave her two weeks worth of kunai and shuriken three days ago. Practice our taijutsu?" Tatsuma asked the others.

"No we had to put that on hold today when the ANBU, jonin, and chunin came looking for us for our adjustments to the Hokages' faces. I mean it's just plain rude of them to spend the last three hours chasing us and not only making us miss out on valuable practice time, but making us late for class." Hariken answered his brother as well as giving the angry Iruka their reason, who was getting angrier by their roundabout way of answering him.

Iruka gritted his teeth as he started to talk. "Okay, since you missed part of the lesson we will have a little quiz on the Henge no Jutsu. Class get in line alphabetically." The brown-haired man finished with a grin as the class groaned.

The Uzumaki's were at the end of the line and two of the three were having a private conversation that the third wasn't in on. _So you remember the plan bro? _Naruto thought to his brother.

Hariken mentally sighed before replying. _You know that if she doesn't kill us that the other might. Even worse they might think that we're perverts. Are you sure that you won't use another form? I really don't feel like getting a beating today._

_You worry too much, she won't hurt us...that badly. Sure she'll be angry, but when we explain the reason we thought of it she'll forgive us and so will the others._ Naruto tried to comfort his brother.

"**I have to agree with the other kit on this one, your sister will be angry for this and so will Rokubi. I'm glad that we can't feel pain in here." **Kyuubi decided to add his opinion.

"**I agree, it's a good thing the both of you cubs are trained and have our healing ability. If you didn't I'm sure you both would be dead after this stunt, or at least unable to walk for a few months"** Shichibi added.

_Ye of little faith. Do you really think I'd do something without thinking about the consequences?_ Naruto mental asked the three.

_Do you really want us to answer that?_/**"Do you really want us to answer that?"** Three voices asked Naruto at the same time. Naruto just smiled nervously as Hariken let their sister go ahead of them.

When Hariken went up for his turn he made a silent prayer before he transformed. He then did a perfect henge of Iruka, except he had a couple pieced of tissue in his nostrils.

"Not bad Hariken, almost perfect but I don't have any tissue in my nose." Iruka said as the blond changed back and moved to the wall opposite of the other students. It might have been his imagination, but Iruka though he hear Hariken whisper 'Not yet' as he passed the man.

Naruto was grinning as he walked up to his teacher and Iruka had a bad feeling. Naruto the shouted "Transform" and was engulfed in a big puff of smoke. Instead of a copy of Iruka standing in Naruto's place when some of the smoke cleared was a young blond woman with pigtails that could pass as either the triplets' older sister or an older version of Tatsuma. The only problem was that she was completely naked with just some of the remaining smoke covering her modesty. "Please don't stare Iruka-sensai, I embarrass easily." The girl said in a cute hushed voice followed by a blush. Iruka's face went completely red as blood shot out his nose, Naruto chose that moment to change back and grinned mischievously. "You like that Iruka-sensai? I call that my Oiroke no Jutsu." He began to laugh and was expecting Iruka to yell at him, but Iruka didn't get the chance as he used a tissue to clean the blood. It should be noted that Iruka heard a faint 'Like I said, not yet...' from Hariken's direction.

Naruto didn't have any warning as he was suddenly punched in the side of the jaw and was sent with enough force to fly into Hariken. Everyone else in the room were surprised by the perverted technique, but were a little more surprised by the fact that Naruto seemed to suddenly be thrown into his brother.

"Ow, what the hell hit me." Naruto asked as he held his hand to his aching face and rubbed it to try to reduce the pain.

"I'll give you some hints. She's blond, standing behind you, and about to become an only child." Hariken replied while rubbing his head and feeling the killer intent rolling off his sister.

Naruto paled as he felt the killing intent and slowly turned his head to greet his angry sister. "Hey sis, umm..something wrong?" He nervously asked.

Tatsuma just grabbed both boys by the collars of their jackets and stood them up as she slammed them against the wall, causing a few crack in it as well. "I would like to know which one of you came up with that technique, why you made that technique, and why did you use what looked like an older version of me?" She asked with a deadly tone and the entire classroom was silent.

"Umm..well in all honesty sis, it wasn't really you it was just a female version of me. Didn't you see the whisker marks? There were three on each cheek, Hariken even told me I kept my three when I made the jutsu. So you se..." He didn't finish that sentence as both he and his little brother were picked off their feet by their sister who was holding them by the collar of their jacket, with their full weights still on.

As the class watch these thoughts were going through their minds. _-Damn, how strong is she?- -She must really be angry.- -I wouldn't want to be in their sandals.- -They deserve whatever they get for creating such a perverted technique.- -I hope she doesn't hurt them too badly._

What was going through the blond brothers' minds was _-We are so screwed.- _and a couple of **"I told you so."**'s were said, as well as -_How can she lift us and our weights? Is Rokubi helping her?-_

"Naruto, you forget that I am you sister, one of a set of triplets. I am the female version of you two! I suppose that the pigtails on that jutsu was just a random idea, right?" The question from the female Uzumaki appeared to have a threatening edge to it.

"Umm...well buns like Tenten and Anko-nee-chan style didn't look right. Your hairstyle is cute and works we..." Naruto was interrupted again as he was suddenly thrown out of the window on the other side of the room...and they were on the third floor. Most of the students were stunned at what Tatsuma did. The then heard a loud thud and, "Oww... you could have threw me through the door you know, that really hurt." Everyone weren't sure if they should laugh or be concerned when they heard Naruto's response to hitting the ground the way that he did.

Tatsuma then turned her head away from the window and back to her other brother. "Now as for you, for your part in th..." She stopped because instead of her brother she was holding his jacket with a practice dummy wearing it. She dropped the dummy and ran to the window only to see Naruto running away. "Naruto, Hariken, you can't hide from me forever. I'm the best tracker of the three of us and I will find you!" With that last statement she jumped out of the window and started looking for her brothers.

The class just sweat dropped at the whole incident. "Wow, she's angrier than I thought. I guess we better lay low for a while, you alright bro?" The class turned around to see Naruto reaching his hand down to the dummy, but it sudden was surrounded by a puff of smoke and revealed Hariken. "We're lucky she was to angry to think straight, or she would have seen past your henge and my bunshin easily."

The two then looked around at the stunned class, the other students would have thought that the two would have been halfway to out out of the country by now. Iruka had dismissed the rest of the class for lunch and Mizuki went to eat as well, though Hikari and Hinata decided to stay and here what the others were talking about(They are a couple of curious girls). Iruka then asked, "How did you do that and get away from her?"

Hariken answered for them, "Naruto could still move when he was thrown out the window, he just made a bunshin(really a Kage Bunshin, but they won't tell the others that) look like it was running away while I just henged into a dummy to make her think I used Kawarimi(Replacement) no Jutsu. She can usually see through those techniques easy, but when she's that mad she loses a little focus, not to mention she can usually sense where we are." When he saw the blank look he continued, "It's a triplet thing, twins too. It means we have a bond so close that we can pretty much feel each others' presence."

"Well that's interesting Hariken, but would you please explain why you developed such a technique like that?" Iruka said as he now looked a like Hariken's earlier henge.

"You want the short answer or the smart answer?" Naruto asked and Iruka indicated both, thought the first one made him almost fall over. "Simple answer, guys are perverts. We actually looked ups some information while we were bored, one thing said that each ninja village on average for every kunoichi there are at least seven male ninja. Also, males in general have some pervertedness in them after puberty, though personally my brother and I wish that wasn't true. We created that jutsu for two purposes, one is the nude version to distract others, I doubt there's a straight male that wouldn't be distracted by that for at least a few seconds and most females would be distracted because of embarrassment or anger at the sight of that jutsu. That would be all the distraction someone could need. The second purpose is the dressed version, it's for infiltration. After all most look at a book by it's cover and would assume a pretty slender girl that our jutsu produced wouldn't be any harm."

Naruto's explanation impressed the four others in the room(Hariken not included). It was still a perverted jutsu, but it was created to exploit the the reactions in others and the stereotypes some developed about women.

Naruto and Hariken was somewhat supprised by the sound of clapping. "Nice explanation brother, so I changed my mind. I'll just hurt you two instead of killing you." The two turned around to see the slightly less angry Tatsuma standing behind them. "I came back around the 'she looses a little focus' part and decided to let you two say why you made that jutsu. From now on, I don't want you to use that nude version unless there is a very good reason and you better not use either form to get me in trouble. If you don't follow that rule your next beating will be ten times worse, is that clear?" She just got a nod to her brothers and she grabbed them to take them for 'training', Iruka just had enough time to remind them about the graduation exam the next day before they left. Iruka learned a long time ago that it was not wise to contradict an angry young lady and kept his mouth shut about them leaving in the middle of class.

_Well this could be a lot worse. _Naruto thought to Hariken.

_Oh, how could it get worse?_ He asked, though he felt that he should have kept that thought to himself.

_She could either tell the others or find out about the Harem no Jutsu._ Naruto replied, but in a few seconds he would wish that he didn't.

_Harem no Jutsu?_ Was the simple question that was asked over the mental link in a feminine voice and caused Naruto to pale again as he would have to tell her about it.

----------------------------

The next day the three blonds showed up on time for class, though Hariken and Naruto seemed a little sluggish and Tatsuma had a smile on her face. "Well at least she let us off easy, she could have done a lot worse." Hariken said to his brother.

"Oh, and how could it get worse than that twelve hour torture she called training?" Naruto asked, a little frustrated that it took the two of them all night to heal and they were still a little sore.

"I left you alive, didn't involve any of the others, and you both will still be able to have children when you grow up." Their sister said in a singsong tone of voice while counting each reason with her fingers.

They all took their normal seats, Hariken and Naruto sitting on either side of Shino while Tatsuma was with Hinata and Hikari. Iruka soon came in the class room followed by Mizuki and a three other chunin that didn't teach that particular class.

"Well students we now going to begin the graduation examination to determine genin. After a lot of discussion we have created a new way to test students. Those that are in the top twenty percent of the class (9 of the 45 students, I forgot to say the class size before)will have to preform a the Hinge no Jutsu, Kawarimi no Jutsu, and the Bunshin no Jutsu to show that you can accurately do the basics ninja jutsu since you have proven in class that you understand everything we taught you already. The middle sixty percent(27 of the 45) will have to do the same as the first group as well as show your kunai and shuriken throwing ability and show all twelve proper handseals. The last twenty percent will just have an all-out spar with the chunin that Mizuki has selected to prove their skills as genin. I was a little against the final part but Mizuke has convinced me that it would be an accurate test of skills. Also for those nine that have to spar, you can spar with the chunin one-on-one or you can talk to the other students that have to spar as well and form a team of two or three at most against all three." Iruka explained to the class.

The three Uzumaki's all frowned. _We know that Mizuki doesn't like us and I recognize those men as some that really hate us, so that means that this was planned to make us fail. _Naruto said to his sibling through their link.

Hariken continued from there. _Yeah, we are the bottom three thanks to those other teachers and if we didn't have other training there would be noway we could even handle another genin, so of course the chunin would prove to be too strong for us and we would fail._

Tatsuma finished. _These three were probably brought here since they could now attack and hurt us without repercussions. Do you guys think we should give them a clue that they are not dealing with pathetic ninja pretenders?_ When that last thought was shared the three all grinned and began to make a plan.

All the students had to take the test in the next room, it allowed them to have no embarrassment of failing in front ofthe class. Of the forty-two students that took the exam, only twenty-seven were able to pass. That left the blond triplets as the last students to take the exam, a three on three sparing match. The three men that were going to fight the blonds were all grinning as they could now inflict some pain on the 'demons' without fear of the Hokage or the four kunoichi punishing them.

"Umm...Iruka-sensai, would you guys leave? I don't want you two to pass-out from blood loss if I have to use the Oiroke no Jutsu on them." Naruto said to the two men. Iruka readily complied since he didn't want a repeat of the previous day and Mizuki reluctantly left, he had wanted to see the three get hurt and fail. There was an odd thing the two didn't notice, Tatsuma was completely unaffected by what Naruto said when she should have been angry with him.

When the door closed Hariken spoke, "Now that they're gone I guess it should be fair to give you three a chance to surrender before you get hurt." The three men just laughed at the tough guy act that the boy was putting on.

-------------------------

A few minutes later on the other side of the door, Iruka was staring at the door worried about the blonds. He heard muffled words said and some laughing, but he couldn't hear exactly what was said or determine who said it. He then heard fighting that lasted a few minutes followed by silence. Soon the door opened to reveal the three chunin looking fine, but they were holding three badly beaten unconscious blonds over their shoulders. The three men unceremoniously dropped the blonds into a pile in the center of the floor and looked at a very angry Iruka, a few stunned students that stayed when the others left, and a smirking Mizuki.

"What did you do to them! You were suppose to test their skills, not beat them like this!" Iruka yelled at the three men.

The one closest to Iruka shrugged. "We warned them to surrender, but they refused. They foolishly thought that they could beat us, so we had to prove them wrong. Besides we saw their skills and I'll admit that they are good."

Iruka was still angry. "That's not the point, they are children trying to become genin, you can't fight them as if they are at your level!" He yelled again.

"You really need to calm down. Besides those three aren't children and you should know that better than anyone." One of the other men said and Iruka was now worried that these men might reveal the secret about the three being demon containers to the students in the class.

The last man finished for the other. "Yeah, they're not children." The man was then surrounded by smoke and Naruto appeared in his place. "They are shinobi that were beaten by children." He said with a grin.

Iruka was confused and soon notice that the first man turned into Tatsuma while the second became Hariken. He then looked at the three blond in the center of the floor, only for them to be engulfed in smoke and become the three chunin from before. The brown haired man then placed his hand on his forehead and sighed. _Not only did those three manage to beat the chunin, but they also pulled a prank on the remaining class and me at the same time. I should have expected thi... Wait they henged themselves and placed a hinge on the chunin?_ "Ok, seeing that you three are fine, I guess that mean that you beat them. Care to explain how?"

"It's really simple, these three are easily distracted and we managed to knock them out when Hariken and Tatsuma distracted them." Naruto happily said while leaving out a lot of detail. "Though I will say that these three weren't really impressive, the Hokage sent tougher chunin than them to find us after some of minor pranks. Well either they are weaker than they appear or we got lucky." As he said that he and his siblings thought about what happened.

---_Flashback-----_

When the door closed Hariken spoke, "Now that they're gone I guess it should be fair to give you three a chance to surrender before you get hurt." The three men just laughed at the tough guy act that the boy was putting on. Hariken just shrugged and looked at his siblings. "Well I gave them a chance, we can't be held responsible now."

The youngest blond then seemed to disappear and suddenly appeared right in front of the man in the middle, he then drove his fist into the taller man's stomach. The chunin bent over in pain as all the air was knocked out of his body and Hariken took that opportunity to do a back flip, which resulted in the man being kicked in the face and fly three yard(3m) backward from the force. Before the man could land on the ground, he felt a foot connect with his face to cause two forms of pain. One was from the impact of the kick on his face and the other came from when the force from the kick drove the back of his head into ground.

The others watch as the blond girl appeared in the air above the falling man and kicked his head into the ground, them follow up with a back flip off the unconscious man's unmoving body. "Damn, these brats are stronger than they appear, we better take care of them before they get us too." One of the men said.

The two men then began to make handseals now that their partner was down, but they were both kicked in the back of the head by the blond boys behind them before they could make their third seal. These kicks sent flying toward Tatsuma, who then did a front flip and had her feet connect with both of the men's heads. As they slammed them face first into the ground, Tatsuma completed her flip by landing on the back of their heads and jumped off just as quickly as she landed. Just as the two were about to get up the were suddenly kicked in their back by the full weight of the Usumaki males. The two men let out a silent scream of pain and had a single thought as they joined their friend in blissful pain-free unconsciousness. _Maybe this wasn't such a good idea..._

"Well that was easy, that barely took us five minutes and we kept the weights on. They are too easily distracted. We better tell the old man that he needs to get the chunin to train more, either that or those that don't like us are really weak. Oh well, you two up for another prank?" Naruto asked the other blonds. The two in question knew what he was thinking without needing to read his mind.

---_End Flashback-----_

While the three was going thinking about what happened inside the room Iruka handed them their new hitai-ites, which they the each tied to their right arm. As they walked outside they heard the whispers from the crowd talking about them. Naruto found Choji and told him they should celebrate with a ramen eating contest, to which Hariken and Tatsuma declined. Tatsuma found Hikari and the two left off to talk. That left Hariken alone when noticed some dark purple hair hiding behind a fence, he figured he might as well do something nice for his big brother as he walked over to the fence.

"Hey Hinata, what are you doing over here all alone?" He asked the quiet girl, who let out a small squeak in reply. Hariken laughed a little since the girl's shy nature was well known. "Well you remember me right, Naruto and Tatsuma's little brother. I believe you and I spoke on some occasions."

"Umm...yes, we spoke to one another once or twice." The lavender eyed girl quietly said with a faint blush on her cheeks. She was a shy girl and really blushed when something embarrassing or concerning her crush Naruto was mentioned, but being friends with his sister and Hikari help her a little. One of the main things the two other girls helped her with was getting rid of her stutter, though she still retained her shy quiet nature. Her problem was that she was having a hard time not blushing since Naruto and Hariken looked so much alike, though she could tell the difference between the two easily.

"Well it seems that my brother decided to go celebrate our graduation over some ramen with Choji, what do you say you and I go get some cinnamon rolls and catch up with each other? I know a good place that make some of the best I ever tasted and I remember sis saying that you really liked them too." Hariken asked, he had a feeling that the girl's face might invent a new shade of red since it sounded like a date, but that wasn't what he had in mind.

As if he was a mind-reader, the blond was right about the girl's thoughts. _...is Naruto-kun's brother...is he asking me out? It would be rude not to accept his offer_ Her face got even redder as she quietly answered, "Umm..I think that would be fine."

The blond smiled and grabbed Hinata by her wrist, which caused the girl to face to almost glow from the redness. "Great, follow me. Don't worry though, this isn't a date or anything. It's more of old friends getting together to talk and celebrate." He reassured the girl, which helped a little.

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Tatsuma was sitting in Hikari's home, eating dango and sipping tea with the girl at the kitchen table. The two had went straight to her home to avoid everyone else celebrating. Makoto was away on a mission and Sasuke was training as usual. Both girls had a lot in common, one of the biggest things they shared was a small tomboy personality. They were still very feminine, liked things that other girls liked, and occasionally treated themselves to things like special lotions or scented shampoo(things that most ninja would probably disagree with, like Kin). Their tomboyish personality came out when training and would also be apparent when on missions, they would rather be treated as equals than some fragile dolls. Tatsuma would always laugh at that thought. Though her brothers felt the need to protect her, she had proved to them that she was just as tough as them. Hikari on the other hand had the overprotective cousin that she loved like a brother, but made her want to strangle him because of his cold attitude outsied of their home and that overprotective nature of his.

"So Hikari, any idea on who will be on our teams? I'm hoping for my brothers to be with me, but if they can't I hope you and Hinata are with me." The blond said to her friend.

The dark haired girl nodded, "I agree, but you know things might not workout how we want them to. Though I wouldn't be surprised if I end up with Sasuke or you being with your brothers, I think that Iruka-sensai and the Hokage might think that family works well together. That would mean that the last of the Uchiha children might be in the same team while the three Uzumaki children form a team."

Tatsuma nodded, she hoped that would be the decision so she wouldn't have to hide her training from her teammates or be hindered with training she probably mastered. "So, any luck with your sharingan? I don't think I ever asked you about yours or Sasuke's," She said. Tatsuma and her siblings knew all about it and they were all worried, especially Naruto, that Hikari or Sasuke would use it to copy one of their family jutsu or one of the jutsu Naruto made.

Hikari placed a finger over her mouth for a second before answering, "Yeah, I wanted to warn you about that. Sasuke activated his about a year ago and has two tomoe in each eye, I just activated mine a couple of weeks ago and just have one in each eye. Sasuke is determined to improve and gain a full sharingan, but I don't think that he's against using it on allies to get stronger jutsu."

Tatsuma frowned a little and thought about what she heard. "No offense, but that was something that I was afraid of. You see we learned our parents' jutsu and Naruto likes to make some, I think you remember that modified henge," the last part was said in a whisper with a little anger mixed in. "We wouldn't mind sharing some with you, but Sasuke doesn't exactly get along with my brothers and I think that Naruto would be a little mad if Sasuke knew any of his jutsu."

"I know what you mean, Mikoto-oba-chan told us that she and several Uchiha once had a moral code that they wouldn't copy any allies jutsu without their permission. She said that it was like stealing from friends since some jutsu are personal." Hikari the took a sip of her tea while looking at the other girl.

"Well I'll Since you decided to share a secret about you and your cousin, do you want to know a secret about my brothers?" Tatsuma asked with a grin, to which she received a nod from the Uchiha girl. "Would you believe that Naruto like Hinata back or that Hariken likes you despite how Sasuke acts toward him? Sadly it might be a few months until they ask you two out, they agreed that they wouldn't until either they change most of the villagers opinions about the three of us or when we go to our first chunin exam."

Hikari was a little stunned when she heard that. Hinata's feelings for Naruto were no secret to them, but Naruto actually returning them was a secret to her. Then she heard that Hariken liked her, she had to admit that he was cute and she had some feelings for the boy, but she never really thought about a relationship with him. As for the villagers odd feeling to them, she never knew what it was, but her aunt did say the the villagers were foolish and unfair in the way they treated the Uzumaki triplets. She thought on that for a few minutes and smirked, if he planned on asking her out near the chunin exams they participate in then so be it, he would just have to pass a test or two in order to do that.

"That's very interesting, I think that he is one of the nicer boys around that don't care about the Uchiha name. I think that he will have to do a couple of things before he can try, " Hikari paused for a second to think. "One could be that he has to beat Sasuke in a fight of some kind since he would be against anyone weak being with me and the other would probably be to get far in the chunin exams whenever he takes them. For all we know we could all be on different teams and might have to take the exam at different times and since he's your brother you could tell him that for me when he takes the exam, if you don't mind?"

The two girls continued to talk until it was dark outside, which was when Tatsuma left. She would soon find some trouble that she wasn't looking for...

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Naruto and Hinata arrived at a small outdoor shop not long after they left the academy(so the same time as Hikari and Tatsuma's talk). It was one of the few places that didn't care about the demons that the three blonds carried and treated them nicely. Though they all liked ramen, they each had their own favorite food. Naruto had a taste for fresh fruit, so he was glad that he had some grew fruits and vegetables in one of his gardens. Tatsuma had developed Anko's taste for dango. Hariken had a simple item he favored, cinnamon rolls. When Hariken and Tatsuma found the place, they would spend as much time there as they all spent at Ichiraku since it served their other favorite foods. Even Naruto would join them when the owner added fruit salads to the menu.

The two were seated as soon as they got there and were given a couple plates of cinnamon rolls with some fresh tea since the owner knew Hariken's usual order and the boy motioned for a second of his usual. As they ate Hariken decided to get straight to the point. "Well Hinata, I said that this isn't a date, but there is a reason that I asked you to join me other than to celebrate. Now I want you to listen to everything I say and try not to react too much, Tatsuma told me that sometimes your reactions are a little...extreme." He laughed a little and received a timid nod from the girl, he continued, "Well to tell you the truth, I know that you have feelings for my brother and so does he." Hinata eyes widened when he said that fought to contain her blush. "He really does like you and want to try dating you, but there are many that don't like us and I think that includes your father. Naruto doesn't want those that don't like us to bother you or cause your relationship with your father to get worse. The three of us are trying to get more people to in the village to like us before he tries to ask you out, though I have a feeling that it's getting harder for him to do that."

Hinata had several different thoughts going though her head when Hariken finished. _Naruto-kun knows that I like him and he likes me too. He really does care for me and want to be with me but can't yet._ That was what she kept thinking until she saw Hariken's brother staring at her, which increased the blush she was wearing since he told her that his brother likes her. "Umm...thank you for telling me Huriken-kun, I think that I can wait for Naruto-kun to make his decision." the girl almost whispered.

Hariken smiled and the two decided to talk some more, he suggest that if she can talk to him easier then she might be have an easier time talking to Naruto in the future. When the two finally finished talking it was already dark out, so Hariken paid for their food and offered to walk Hinata home. As they walked through the almost deserted street Hariken suddenly grabbed Hinata and jumped back as several kunai and shuriken suddenly embedded themselves in the ground where the two were just standing. Not long after, several of Konoha's ninja appeared in front of them.

"Hmm...you can't be assassins since it's not their style to attack any of us in plain view with witnesses around, so would you care to tell me the reason there are four chunin and two jonin trying to kill me?" Hariken said in an almost bored and angry tone, like having his life in danger was more of an announce instead of something new.

One of the chunin decided to answer him. "Quit playing you stupid fox-brat, we know that you stole the forbidden scroll from the Hokage's office twenty minutes ago. Tell us where you hid it and we will let Hokage-sama punish you instead of doing it ourselves."

"Oh no, someone help me. These chunin and jonin are trying to kill me, an unarmed resent academy graduate." Hariken said with no form of enthusiasm behind his words. "Now that I got that out of the way, there are four things wrong with what you said. One, you said twenty minutes ago, but I have at least six people that can tell you where I was. Two, you said fox-brat which means you have me mixed up with Naruto since that's what I hear most adults call him, I'm Huriken the younger brother and you have no idea how annoying it is so be mixed up for him so often. Three, you said playing stupid when I honestly had no idea why you are after me, now I do. Four, Naruto would never steal the forbidden scroll, he has no reason to do that and even if he did I would know about it." He finished while positioning Hinata behind him and whispered to her. "Hinata, go home as fast as you can, I'll find out what this is about and Tatsume can explain it to you later."

Hinata wanted to stay to help and find out about everything that was said, but she decided to listen to the blond. The strange way he talked made it seem as if he had everything in control or been in a similar situation. Once she was gone the ninja began to close in on him since they didn't have to worry about harming the Hyuga heiress. Hariken was beginning to wish that he still had his weapon, but he had assumed he wouldn't need them for a couple days. He suddenly felt something in the back of his mind and smirked. There was a sudden explosion behind the group of ninja that attracted their attention and when they turned back to the blond he was gone.

Hariken was running across the roof with his siblings right after they caused a distraction for his escape. "Let me guess, you were with the others and several ninja appeared to accuse you of stealing the forbidden scroll?" He asked them and received a nod as the continued to move from roof to roof toward the forests of the village. "What sense does that make? The old man knows that we have a copy in our library and of all people it would have been Tatsuma, she's our infiltration and reconnaissance expert. Even if it was you, you have more than enough skill to get in and out without being seen Naruto."

"Simple bro, I was setup and you two are going down with me. Someone must have henged into me, stole the scroll, and made sure to be seen so that the 'demons' take the blame. Sis, you have the best nose and the person would most likely hid in the forests then try to escape, do you think you can detect any new scents?" Naruto asked.

She nodded as they entered the forest. They spent all spent a lot of time in the forests and knew each and every smell in it thanks to their senses. They could also tell if there was a new scent in the forests if they were downwind, but Tatsuma's senses were so sharp that she could detect scents twice as fast as her brothers. Not long after that she picked up a few scents.

"I smell something like old paper, must the scroll. Also I smell Mizuki-sensai, Iruka-sensai, and two other scents that I don't recognize with Mizuki-sensai and Iruka-sensai. I don't know about those two other people, but I have a bad feeling about th...I smell blood now, you two should be able to detect it in a second."

The three hurried trough the forest and soon found a shed with Iruka leaning against it, kunai stuck in various places on his body. Standing in front of Iruka were...themselves with the forbidden scroll sitting behind them as they laughed at Iruka, a cruel laugh that didn't fit an Uzumaki.

Iruka looked at the 'triplets' in disbelief. "But why..why did you do it? You three just became genin..." Iruka weakly asked.

The three just laughed more. "You ask why Iruka-sensai. It's simple, we are monsters that crave power. Power to destroy this village and achieve our dream. You of all people know how cruel we were back before we were sealed in these weak bodies," 'Naruto' said.

Iruka tried to fight back the pain of the thought that the children he knew was nothing but demons in disguise. "No that's not true! The Naruto I know cares about this village just like his sibling, they all care about those that care for them, and their dream isn't to gain power to destroy. The Uzumaki's that I know want to work hard together to gain power to protect everyone that they care about, Naruto wants to achieve his dream of becoming Hokage to gain acknowledgment and protect those that live in his village with the help of Hariken and Tatsuma. The Uzumaki's that I know is not monsters! They are Konohagakure no Sato shinobi! They are Uzumaki Naruto, Tatsuma, and Hariken, my former students and our future leaders. Most importantly, you are not them!" Iruka finished. His speech had tears coming to the triplets' eyes, but the doubles in front of him just laughed some more.

"Think whatever you want Iruka-sensai, you will be dead s..." 'Naruto' never finished his sentence as he was suddenly punched by the real Naruto and thrown into the other two. The three rolled on the ground for a few seconds and stood up once they stopped, but the henge they were wearing disappeared. In the place of the fake triplets stood Mizuki and two men that appeared to be chunin of Leaf too.

"You know Mizuki, it's not nice to mess with the reputations of others by pretending to be them. You have any idea how much of a headache it is to get away from strong ninja when I didn't have an escape plan or my siblings help?" Naruto said to his former sensai as his siblings moved to his side.

"Yeah, thanks to you Hinata and I were almost stabbed by shuriken and kunai." Hariken added.

"Yeah he and Hin...wait, what were you doing with Hinata?" Naruto asked his brother with a bit of anger in his voice and his chakra raising a little.

Hariken put his hand up in defense, "Calm down bro, we just talked over tea and cinnamon rolls. I figured that I should get to know her better since she is one of our sister's best friends." _You know you have nothing to worry about, I have my eye on someone else._ He finished mentally to Naruto, who calmed down a little as the two noticed everyone staring at them. "Umm..anyway that was a nice speech Iruka-sensai, it really brought tears to our eyes. Now let's deal with these guys."

"Wait, how about we share a secret with you? Tell you the reason why you three are so hated by the village?" Mizuki offered them while grinning.

Iruka was about to try to stop him, but Tatsuma beat him to it. "If you're talking about the demons, save you're breath. We learned about them when we were five and they are pretty okay when they're in a good mood." The adults were shocked by that revelation. "We also know that we are not them, though we wish we were as strong as they are."

Mizuki suddenly yelled, "I really don't care. I'll kill the three of you before I kill Iruka, then I'm leaving this village with the scroll." Mizuki yelled as he took the two fuuma shuriken off his back(he only threw one when trying to hit Naruto, so he still has both) and prepared to throw them and the two men at his side both pulled out some normal shuriken.

The three men released their projectiles and they went right at the three blonds, but the three didn't stand still. Tatsuma went through a couple handseals in the blink of an eye and the wind started to shift faster. Soon a small tornado appeared around the three and the shuriken were captured in the wind. When the wind died down, all the weapons were at Hariken's feet.

"Do you like it? Naruto created it, the name is Futon: Senpuu no Tate(Wind Release: Whirlwind Shield). It creates a whirlwind around the the user that can block almost anything thrown at it. It's very effective with projectile weapons, fire based jutsu, and other wind based jutsu. One of the useful jutsu that Naruto made." Tatsuma explained. The fact that Naruto created something that could be a C-level or even a B-level jutsu surprised the adults further, but the blond boys were about to really shock them.

"Well bro, I'll aim if you multiply them." Hariken said to Naruto, who nodded. Hariken then made the seal for one of their favorite jutsu and said "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu", which caused two solid copies of him to be created. Each one of the copies picked up the discarded shuriken while the original picked up the two fuuma shuriken. They then threw them with the accuracy and speed of a jonin.

As the three men prepared to dodge the weapons, they failed to notice Naruto making the same seal as his brother did, but they did hear what he said and they were worried. "Shuriken Kage Bunshin no Jutsu" Then all the shuriken multiplied and struck the men.

The two fuuma shuriken became six and effectively pinned the men arms to the threes behind them, the shuriken trapped them so well that if the men flinched they would either slit their wrists or cut off their hands. The sixteen shuriken the clones threw (the men used four per hand and the three didn't have their own) were now sixty-four, sixty-three pinned the sleeves of the men's jackets and pants legs to the tree with the last one slashing the side of the cloth for Mizuki's hitai-ite, then embedded itself next to his head as his headband fell to the ground.

"You don't deserve to wear the symbol of Leaf Mizuki and be glad we're not monsters like you claimed we are, because if we were you three would be dead." Hariken said as he and his older siblings ran up to the three and knocked them out with a single punch, then grabbed the hitai-ites the three ex-Leaf shinobi.

Iruka was stunned into silence by what he witnessed. Tatsuma then picked up the forbidden scroll and placed it on her back as her brothers placed themselves on either side of Iruka and placed one of his arms over their shoulders to form a pair of human crutches for him. What they didn't know was that they were all being watched by the Hokage through his crystal ball.

_These three are said to be the bottom of the class and yet they were able to beat a total of six chunin level ninja in a day. Also Naruto created another jutsu other than that Oiroke no Jutsu.._ He paused and blushed a little under his hat as he remembered seeing the jutsu when he decided to check on the three the previous day. _...they know Kage Bunshin and Shuriken Kage Bunshin. I will have to make sure that they are on the same team since they obviously work best together, but the problem is who will I have instruct them? This will take a lot of thinking._

That's the end of this chapter.

**A/N:** Well I hope you enjoyed this chapter, the part with Hariken and Naruto's love life was just to officially say it in the story, as well as show a small rivalry. Naruto and Neji don't get along, despite they only see each other on a couple of occasions. Hariken and Sasuke don't get along, though his problem with Naruto is mainly due to being Hariken's brother. I thought it would be funny that the Uzumaki brothers would have feeling for a couple of girls, but have a bit of a rivalry of some kind with their cousins. Also I decided to have Naruto knowing about Hinata's crush, but wanting to wait so she doesn't get involved with the village opinion of him and having it directed at her as well. Hariken feels the same, but unlike Naruto he doesn't know she likes him back and Tatsuma isn't telling him.

I know the fights were short, but possible with surprise and short bursts of speed(it was just speed and strength used to preform the attacks in the first fight scene). I altered the theft of the forbidden scroll so that it was just Mizuki using a henge to incriminate Naruto. The two men were just some guys that he got to help him escape, but had them henge into the other two Uzumaki's to taunt Iruka.

The part with Hariken and Hinata was a random thought. I was going to have them go look for Kurenai and the others to celebrate, but I decided not to have them involved and to separate the three. I wanted to have Tatsuma talk to one of the girls instead of both, while having one of her brothers talk to the other. So if she talked to Hinata then it would be Naruto talking to Hikari. The short part about Naruto's question about Hariken and Hinata was impossible for me not to include.

The scene after the Oiroke no Jutsu I thought would be a funny response to it. It is really a older female form, considering that the henge is about the height of an adult and far more developed than someone in their early teens/preteens. It could be assumed that Tatsuma will look like that when she's around 16, also the reason that she was so angry about the jutsu. I also wanted to point out that it is foolish to anger an Uzumaki, even for family.

The forbidden scroll copy, I made it so that it would seem that the Yondaime would make a back up in a secure place if something happened to the one in the tower. Also, I said they mastered all of their parent's jutsu, not the scroll so there could be any number of jutsu in there they either don't know or haven't mastered yet.

Decided to change the exam and split it into parts to show some of the triplets skills while having the others not have to display much of theirs. If you haven't figured it out, the Rookie 9 are now the Rookie Dozen and I gave away the team setup in this chapter while I'll keep the other two the same. The instructors will be shown in the next chapter, though it is a little different than my original plan. Also I'm not sure how long I'll keep ending the chapters with the Hokage's thoughts or if other chapters will be this long.

As for my other story, it will be at least another week before I update.


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